Life, Letter by Letter
by servantofclio
Summary: A series of snapshots of Val Shepard's life, arranged alphabetically. References to Shepard/Garrus and Shepard/Liara.
1. A is for Awkward

I got the urge to write an alphabet series. This is one of the few times I'm actually writing one of my headcanon Shepards that I played in the games: Val Shepard, vanguard, paragade. I don't want to say too much more about her here; for the most part, her background and personality should come through in these ficlets.

* * *

"... I just want to know what this thing is between us."

Damn. There was really no way this could have been anything but awkward.

Kaidan Alenko had once been a subordinate, and even a friend. They'd all bonded pretty tightly, back on the SR-1.

And now he outranked her, by Alliance reckoning. Was her equal as a Spectre, by Council reckoning. By rights, he should have had his own command. And yet he'd asked for a berth on the Normandy, and she'd agreed.

Maybe she should have said no. Pushed him to carve out a space of his own. She'd thought he just wanted to be where the most action was, and that wasn't a request she could easily deny. Not for a friend.

Awkward, too, because what he'd said on Horizon and Mars still rankled. With so much else on her plate, she was willing to overlook it and try to move on, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that she held a bit of a grudge.

So what he'd just said was like _awkward squared_. Or cubed, maybe. Was _this_ why he'd asked to come aboard? Was he hoping to rekindle something that had never actually kindled?

She didn't need this. Not with her actual ex-girlfriend aboard, when Liara said things were fine, but Shepard could read her well enough to see the disappointment in her eyes. And she didn't need this with her actual boyfriend aboard, when Garrus said things were fine, but Shepard could read _him_ well enough to tell that he was still feeling a little insecure about... everything. As if she might suddenly change her mind and boot him out of her quarters without warning. And she didn't need this when Garrus and Liara were key parts of her team and were still being a little stiff and tense around each other, if perfectly polite and professional.

She'd seen the signs of infatuation in Alenko way back at the beginning, and she'd done her best to shut it down, firm and professional. Admittedly she hadn't been so professional in her other relationships—and maybe he didn't even know about Garrus, since he'd only been aboard for a few days. But how the hell could he have carried a torch for her all those years? Especially first thinking she was dead, and then thinking that she was a traitor?

"Kaidan... I don't know what to say. I'm sorry, but I don't think there is anything more between us than friendship. Not on my side, at least."

"Oh." He looked away, but couldn't quite conceal his expression, and Shepard winced. "That's not what I was hoping to hear, but I get it. It's not a good time for distractions."

She nodded and then shook her head. She couldn't let him continue under this misapprehension. "No, that's not exactly it. I'm with someone else. Garrus and I have been together for a little while, now."

His brows drew together, and she could _see_ him discarding the first several things he was going to say. She willed him to do so, willed him not to say anything she wouldn't be able to forgive him for. She said, "If you want to leave the crew, under these circumstances, I'd understand."

"No." Kaidan shook his head. "I want to be in this fight, Shepard, and I know the Normandy will be in the thick of it. If it's not a problem for you for me to be there, it's not a problem for me."

"It's not a problem for me," she said, with more assurance than she felt.

They turned to other topics then, but the conversation was still a little stiff.

Yeah. Awkward.


	2. B is for Blame

Fine, Joker could admit it: he was gushing about the leather seat because he was really hoping Shepard wouldn't ask any follow-up questions.

She looked like herself, arms crossed over her chest, weight shifted back onto one foot, a little half-smile playing around her mouth. She had the same long hair pulled up into a tight knot. The glint of red in the back of her eyes was new, and so were the reddened scars etched into her cheeks. Somehow those bothered him less than the uniform. It just looked weird to see her in Cerberus black and white instead of Alliance navy blue.

She unfolded her arms and plopped herself down into the unused secondary seat. "C'mon, Joker, why are you really here?"

Shit. There was the question he'd been hoping she wouldn't ask. He moved his fingers over the controls, trying to look busy. "I told you. The Alliance grounded me. Cerberus let me fly."

Shepard didn't look convinced. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would the Alliance ground you, after everything you did? After the Battle of the Citadel? You got a commendation for that, I made sure of it."

"Guess they lost patience," he said. "Insubordination." His voice sounded clipped and brusque even to himself.

Shepard shrugged. "That never bothered anyone before."

She just wasn't going to let this go, was she? Joker gave up and turned the seat to look her squarely in the eye. "Yeah, it did, they just overlooked it before. Look, Commander. There was a party line, all right? And I wasn't willing to stick with it."

She was still smiling, and she raised one thin eyebrow. A vintage Shepard face. "Party line?"

"Come on, you have to know what I'm talking about. It started even before you died." Her expression didn't flicker. "They were saying even then that it was just the geth, that there was no Reaper, and afterward it got worse. That the geth destroyed the _Normandy_, too, and that you had a few too many screws loose. Combat stress, they said. Never entirely stable, they said. Made Saren out to be some kind of master manipulator you couldn''t see through." The corners of her smile were gradually falling, and the look in her eyes was something he didn't want to think about. Anger would have been easier to face. He forced the last words out. "I wasn't going to sell you out that way. Not after I got you killed." Joker turned away, fixing his gaze on the gauges.

There was a silence. He almost would have been grateful for that damned blue ball to pop up and say something.

"It wasn't your fault," Shepard said. Her voice was gentle, and Joker winced. Anger would have been a _lot_ easier to face. He tugged his cap down and looked at her sideways from under it.

Shepard leaned forward, that intense look in her eyes. "You didn't attack my ship, and you didn't break my O2 line. Believe me, I remember." For a moment, she faltered, and he winced again. Two years he'd lived with the memory, but for her, it was fresh, only a handful of days earlier.

"I should have followed orders and evacuated," Joker muttered, still not quite believing what he was hearing.

Shepard shrugged and leaned back. "Probably. Then again, we might have lost more crew that way." She bounced slightly in the seat. "You're right, this really is comfortable."

Joker rolled his eyes. Now who was deflecting? "I can't believe you're not pissed off at me."

Shepard hesitated. "Maybe I should be," she admitted. "But I'm really not. I'm... Look, Joker, whatever happened, I'm alive now, and I'm glad you're here. We might need some fancy flying before we're done with this mission."

Okay. If that's the way she wanted to play things, he'd play along. He gave her his best grin. "Planning on blowing up any more volcanoes?"

She made a face. "That's not really the sort of thing you plan." She pulled herself to her feet. "I have to admit, I miss the old team."

Joker didn't blame her. Lawson was easy on the eyes, sure, but her attitude was another story. Taylor seemed like he might be okay. He'd heard about Tali being on Freedom's Progress. No real surprise she wasn't willing to sign on for this cruise. He said, "Don't worry, Commander, I'm sure we can find you a crazy krogan mercenary or two on Omega. Maybe even a turian cop, if you're good."

Shepard gave him a half-smile. "I don't even think they have cops on Omega." She turned to leave the cockpit, then hesitated and turned back, one hand resting on the bulkhead. "Cerberus says they don't know where Garrus is. You haven't heard from him, have you?"

She didn't ask about her blue girlfriend, just about her spiky best friend. Now that was interesting. Joker's eyebrows went up. "Pah. No. Miranda already asked. Saw him at the—" _at the funeral_, he almost said "—on the Citadel once or twice, but that was nearly two years ago. Sorry, Commander, you're going to have to find a new favorite alien."

She frowned but nodded. "Thanks, Joker." She turned to go, and then hesitated again. "We're good, Joker. If anyone hassles you about not evacuating, send 'em to me."


	3. C is for Cage

Val Shepard reflected that Cerberus had caged her.

It was a really nice cage. It had the big cabin with the fish tank. The leather seats. The upgraded drive core and stealth system. She didn't have a handle on the tech upgrades; that was the sort of thing she was used to relying on Adams and Alenko and Tali and Garrus for. Tali had walked away, for good enough reasons, and there were rookies instead of Adams down in engineering, and Kaidan's location was classified, and Garrus was... missing, but she couldn't dwell on that now. Joker understood the new tech schematics, though, and he was practically salivating over them, so that told her something.

Shepard watched the bubbles in the fish tank and counted the ways they'd caged her.

They had caged her with missing colonists. She might be paranoid, but she wasn't paranoid enough to think that they had staged the scene on Freedom's Progress for her benefit. (Besides, Tali wouldn't be a party to something like that.) But Cerberus obviously knew her background, and knew that the girl from Mindoir couldn't stand by and let other human colonists get carted off like so much livestock.

They had caged her with the ship. She couldn't love it yet, even though (because) it looked so much like her lost frigate, ripped to pieces over a frozen world. It had been her first command, her beautiful prototype, with all the little quirks that prototypes had. This ship was bigger and brighter and glossier, but it wasn't hers yet.

They had caged her just by bringing her back. Shepard had thought about running, taking the data from Freedom's Progress and going back to the Alliance with it. But she knew that she came with a four-billion-credit price tag. Even if Cerberus let her walk, she would be still suspect in Alliance eyes. She'd been presumed KIA for two years. No one was going to believe the resurrection story, even if she toned it down to "I was in a coma." They would have to presume that she'd gone rogue; without Cerberus backing her, they'd put her in a cell. It might be the proper, regulation thing to do, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, not with the colonists' lives on the line.

They had caged her with the crew. Even if she ran, Joker and Chakwas were here, vulnerable, guarantees of her good behavior. And the crew seemed, for the most part, like decent folks, with spouses and families. Some of them, like Donnelly and Daniels, didn't seem to have any real idea what kind of organization they'd signed on with. Some of them were probably true believers. She would need to figure out which. She didn't quite trust Chambers. The yeoman probably read her mail, and was either fairly gullible or a really good actress. Shepard sure as hell didn't trust Lawson, but at least Lawson was open about the fact that she reported to the man behind the curtain. Taylor she did trust, a little; he was too ready to trust in Cerberus, but he seemed like too straightforward a soldier to shoot her in the back.

Everything just seemed so calculated; she could almost feel the Illusive Man's hand pulling her strings. Her life, her mission, her ship, her crew. Crew that she could care about, crew that she already felt responsible for.

Crew that she could persuade to take her side, not Cerberus's.

Even on a casual conversation, too many of them looked at her with awe and admiration. They were here because of the great Commander Shepard, not because of Cerberus. That gave her an edge.

The only way out of the cage that she could see was to take them all with her.

Days later, she sat on a crate in the main battery and laid it all out. It occurred to her that Garrus ought to be the one sitting, but he'd always been a terrible patient, and he obstinately stood, leaning back against the railing, arms crossed, head tilted, listening.

"So that's about the size of it," she finished. "The Illusive Man said it was up to me whether to take on the mission, but I don't know that I believe him. Four billion credits they supposedly spent on me, who knows how much on the ship and the crew, and then... what? If I say no, I won't do it, they just drop me off on the Citadel? I doubt it."

He said, "Shepard, if you want to jump ship, we'll find a way."

We. A wave of relief washed over her. She took in a breath. "Not yet. If it's true that the Collectors are taking the colonists, I need to know if there really is a Reaper connection. I need to see it through."

He nodded. "I can understand that." He hesitated. "Shepard, you've talked a lot about the mission, but what about you? The reports said..."

"That I was spaced?" She folded her arms across her chest, trying to suppress the shiver. "Yeah. I remember the explosion." He breathed out a word she didn't quite catch. She went on, "My O2 line was damaged. It... vented pretty quickly."

"Damn. I'm sorry I asked."

"It's all right," she said, too quickly. "The next thing I remember is waking up in the lab. That was just a few days ago. I know it sounds ridiculous to say they brought me back from the dead, but... I think I was in pretty bad shape. I don't remember..." She trailed off, trying to dredge up a memory where there was simply nothing.

"You're here now." Garrus's tone was sharp enough that Shepard looked up, to find his gaze intense and focused. "You're alive now. The rest of it doesn't matter."

"Thanks, Garrus," she said. The moment abruptly felt too charged, so she stood. "So, we'll cut the Cerberus leash eventually, but for now we'll play along, if you're up for the ride."

"Hey, I was promised a walk into hell. You'd better not disappoint, Shepard."

She smiled. "Never."

As she left the battery, she reflected that the cage seemed more surmountable with the right company.


	4. D is for Dossiers

Val Shepard tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. It wasn't nightmares keeping her up this time, just information she wasn't supposed to have. "I forwarded you some files of interest," Liara had said. She'd seen the familiar names. She'd hesitated, but she'd indulged her curiosity, and now she regretted it. She talked to her crew every day; if they'd wanted her to know these things, they could have told her themselves.

Still, a lot of the information was harmless enough. She was just amused by the discovery that Legion played video games. Grunt's extranet searches made her grin. Mordin probably wouldn't mind that she saw his publication record, even though some of it was classified.

Other things were a little too personal, a little too private: Tali's condolence letters, for example. There was no easy way to write things like that; you just had to grit your teeth and do it. Tali had asked, stammering and shy, what Shepard had said to Ashley's family. Val had used familiar forms for that letter: simple, classic, dignified. She'd tried to make it a little more personal, to talk about Ash's service, how much Val had respected and _liked_ her. Even then, it didn't sound right, stiff, inadequate tribute to a lively, vivid woman. She'd sent it anyway. Sometimes there were no adequate tributes.

She also didn't think Jack would want her to know about the poetry. Samara's conversations with her surviving daughters were none of Shepard's business. Reading about Anderson's drinking habits made her feel a little uneasy. Reading about Miranda's infertility made her feel much more than uneasy. It felt invasive, nosy. That was surely not something Miranda would have chosen to share.

Val herself was ambivalent about the idea of having children. When she'd started off on her career, she'd thought: maybe someday, but not now. Over the years, the few times the thought had crossed her mind, she'd come up with plenty of other reasons to dismiss it: not without a partner, not as this stage of my career, not with a galactic apocalypse on the horizon. For her, a diagnosis of sterility would have been... clarifying, and not necessarily something she mourned. She certainly wasn't going to have biological children with her current lover, anyway.

She grimaced, rolled over, and pounded the pillow with her fist. When she flopped back down, it was still uncomfortable. Of all the people she shouldn't have been spying on, her boyfriend surely topped the list. His visor specs and music list were one thing. Harmless information, maybe something to tease him about. His kill list, the names of his men: that was something different. He still didn't talk much about Omega, even months later. She wasn't sure what stories lay behind the more gruesome of those kills, but she trusted that he'd had _reasons_ for his actions.

The rest of it...

She hadn't thought about what Garrus might be leaving behind to join her. It had been such a relief to her when he joined the crew, maybe she hadn't really wanted to think about it. Maybe she'd naively supposed there wasn't anything _to_ leave behind: his ties to C-Sec already cut, his team on Omega gone. With no family of her own, she sometimes forgot that other people still had their ties. Especially when, like Garrus, they hardly ever talked about them. She'd known that he didn't get along with his father. She hadn't imagined a sick mother, a sister frustrated with caretaking and angry with his absence.

And now she couldn't even bring it up. She'd had no right to violate his privacy. He'd have every right to be angry if she raised the issue now. She wasn't confident she could simply hint around without giving herself away, either.

_So, Garrus, tell me about your family._

_Why the sudden interest, Shepard?_

No. What was between them felt too new to risk on a confession like that. She'd have to wait, and hope he eventually told her himself.

She had to wait longer than she'd hoped, not as long as she'd feared. She was at her desk, dealing with the reports and travel arrangements required for her... surrender... she made a face. No. Her _handover_ of the _Normandy_ (and herself) to the Alliance. The door behind her opened.

Only Garrus would have entered without knocking. She spun around in the chair. "Hey, are you off shift already? I think I lost track of time..." She trailed off as she got a look at his face. "What's wrong?"

Garrus sighed. "Do you have a minute? There's something I should tell you."

"Sure." She followed him down the steps to the couch and perched there, alert and wary.

For his part, Garrus seemed much more interested in looking at the floor or the fish, until he finally sighed again and said, "My mother's ill."

Val nodded, suppressing her relief. She'd been afraid he was going to come out with something else, some crisis she _hadn't_ known about. She slid closer and leaned her shoulder against his. Haltingly, he continued. "It's a degenerative condition. She's had it for a while. My sister's been looking after her. I'd managed to pull some strings and get her into a salarian treatment program, but..."

"It didn't work?" she asked gently.

He shook his head. "She's gone back home. She probably doesn't have a lot of time left."

She took his hand, her fingers sliding between his. "I'm sorry."

"So I need to get back to Palaven. I'm sorry—I wanted to stay with you—"

"No, don't apologize. Of course you should go home." She squeezed his hand. "I'd go with you if you wanted, but I don't think I can."

"I know. It'll be fine," Garrus said, but there was a tremor in his voice that suggested he didn't believe it.

"We'll make the arrangements. We're dropping off most of the rest of the crew anyway." She hesitated. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He was silent for long enough that she thought that might be her answer, but eventually he said, "I don't know what to say. She'd been sick for so long, and I knew it was getting worse, but..." He swallowed. "And I haven't been there."

Val felt a flash of guilt. Following her around was a good portion of the reason for that. She squeezed harder, and said, "If you do want to talk, I'll listen. I'm here for you, too."


	5. E is for Eezo

The biotics had come as a surprise.

When the Alliance patrol finally found her, hiding in the rubble of what had once been the Garcias' barn, she'd flared blue before she realized they were human. Once they'd gotten her on board their ship and stitched up her wounds, they'd asked her a lot of questions, beyond the basics of who she was and what had happened. Most of them were questions she couldn't answer. She couldn't recall showing any signs of biotic potential as a child, and she didn't know enough about her parents' lives to pin down where her mother might have gotten the eezo exposure. The medics told her that sometimes biotics manifested under stress, and that was all the explanation that they could offer.

She remembered the moment they'd manifested with crystal clarity, years and years later. How she'd been running through the settlement, away from the burning wreckage of her parents' house. How she'd rounded a corner, panting for breath, and found a cluster of batarians in front of her. How she'd screamed, her heart racing, feeling as though her skin was about to split open, her vision hazed with blue, and then the batarians tumbled to the ground, as if something had hit them hard. She'd turned and fled, terrified they were following her, until she found herself a place where she could burrow in and hide, ignoring how the twisted wreckage tore at her skin, and there she'd stayed until the Alliance patrol found her.

The BAAT program had been shut down the year before, and its scandalous failure had the government scrambling to develop a workable alternative. As a newly identified adolescent biotic, Val Shepard had been required to register and attend weekly training sessions during her two years in foster care. Those had focused on defense and control, with the goal simply being to prevent teenage biotics from seriously injuring anyone, including themselves. She'd found the training dull and tiresome, simultaneously bored and strained by the effort of holding up a barrier for minutes at a time.

It wasn't until Shepard joined the military and was enrolled in mandatory military biotics training that she'd really discovered what she could do. She'd gone to the first session warily, half expecting more hours of barrier training. Control was not her strongest suit. Sure, she didn't flare randomly, and she could make a barrier if she had to, but maintaining it wore her out quickly and made her irritable.

But no. The Alliance trainers put objects in front of her and told her to make them move. That was how she found out that what she was good at was _power_. She'd stared at the standard-sized crate, focusing all her attention on it, until it shot across the training bay and slammed into the wall. She stared at it with some amazement. The one-meter-cubic piece of metal was _dented_.

Her trainers watched impassively and scribbled notes on their datapads.

From there, her training took a clear direction, and everything came with shocking ease. She flung things into the air or across the room. Not always in the direction indicated, but always with immense force. She warped armor so hard it snapped. And instead of feeling tired and frustrated at the end of a session, she felt exhilarated.

The Alliance tended to spread its biotics out, so Shepard didn't work much with other biotics between graduating from the Academy and starting service on the _Normandy_. The experience was educational. Kaidan was all finesse: precise, careful, controlled use of biotics that Shepard couldn't hope to match. Liara's style was equally unobtainable: fluid grace that came to her as naturally as breathing. Wrex's style was much like her own, except _more so_: more force, more efficiency. His centuries of combat experience showed in the way he never wasted a movement. She'd never before had the opportunity to compare and combine biotics so well.

After her resurrection, Miranda and Chakwas told her that her implant had been upgraded to the experimental L5n. It took Shepard a while to realize what that meant. It didn't feel any different. She didn't really test it out under field conditions until she was frantically trying to lock down the basement approaches to Garrus's base; when more goddamned vorcha appeared through the gate ahead of her, she just snapped, screamed, and _launched_ without thinking about it.

And suddenly she found herself face to face with the vorcha that had previously been some 15 yards away, and she had just enough presence of mind to punch the thing in the face and fire off shotgun rounds until it and its companions were lying still on the floor. She slammed her fist into the control for the door, staying vigilant until the gate slid shut.

Then she turned and shouted to Miranda, "What the hell was that?"

"I told you, Shepard," she called back. "Experimental implants. That's a very risky tactic, though."

Shepard waved her off, thinking through the possibilities, and slowly a grin spread over her face. Oh yes. This little enhancement, she liked.


	6. F is for Foster

The Shepard girl was a tall, gangly teenager who arrived with fresh red scars slashing across her face and a single duffel bag containing the few possessions that had been salvaged from the ruins of her family's home.

Maria Jackson said, "We can set up an appointment with a cosmetic surgeon if you like..."

The girl flinched, stiffened, and hunched her shoulders. "No."

She moved into the bedroom vacated by the Jacksons' elder daughter, now twenty-four and living on her own. Their younger daughter was nearly the same age as the new foster, but they had very little in common and soon came to leave each other alone.

Maria had been told about the tragedy on Mindoir, but it didn't give her many clues on how to deal with the girl. The therapist Val saw every two weeks said her responses were not unusual for a young person subjected to such emotional trauma and advised Maria to concentrate on creating a calm, stable environment.

Maria did her best to reach out to the girl, but she usually answered in monosyllables. She hunkered down. She did her homework and didn't cause problems at school. But if she was making friends, Maria didn't know about it. At home, she tended to shut herself into her room and only came out for meals.

She enrolled in summer classes without even telling Maria.

"I don't mind," Maria told her gently, "but why did you want to?"

"I'd rather keep busy," Val said in a low voice. "And all my old classes didn't transfer. I want to finish when I'm eighteen so—" she broke off suddenly.

It was true that the curriculum at her old school had been different enough that she had to retake some classes, and of course she'd started the spring term's classes midway through. Maria was glad to see some signs of interest in the future, though. "What do you want to do?" Maria asked.

She shifted, hunching her shoulders. "I want to enlist."

Maria frowned at the girl in front of her, tall for age, but thin. Hadn't she already seen enough violence and suffering in her life? Why should she volunteer for more? "Are you sure that's what you want to do with your life?"

She looked up then, and there was something burning in her green eyes. "Yes," she said, with intensity, and Maria didn't push.

Val worked quietly all summer, escaping the house mostly to go for long runs, while Rosa worked her part-time job and went out with her friends. By the fall, the scars had faded, and Val seemed less unhappy. She sometimes did her homework at the dining room table instead of alone in her room, though she was still quiet. "Does she have friends at school?" Maria asked Rosa.

Rosa shrugged. "Sure. I guess so. She hangs out with people at lunch, anyway."

Maria tried not to worry.

In late fall Val announced, shyly, that she was trying out for the basketball team.

"That sounds like fun," Maria said, with some caution. She'd been encouraging Val to do some kind of extracurricular ever since she came to them, and had always been rebuffed before.

Val made the team, and looked surprised but pleased when Maria showed up to the first home game. After that, Maria made a point of going to every game she could.

Watching the team taught her things that she hadn't learned in all the months this silent girl had lived in her house. There were girls on the team who were taller, though not many. There were girls on the team who were more experienced and skilled. That was most of them, as Val freely admitted they hadn't had a real team back on Mindoir. But there weren't other girls on the team who were tougher or who worked harder. Val was a ruthless defender. She made a lot of mistakes early in the season, and she fouled out of more than one game; but by the end of the season, she was almost always in the right place to make something happen. Maria watched it happen; she saws how the other girls learned to rely on her and even turn to her for leadership. She saw her foster child's face break into a smile, and realized how seldom she'd seen that bright, open expression.

It made her think. One evening after the end of the season, she went to Val's room, knocked quickly, and then opened the door. "Listen," she began, and stopped short on finding the girl with a teammate, kissing. The two of them froze before hastily scrambling apart, their eyes wide. Maria tried to restrain her expression. "Okay, come talk to me after your guest leaves. Have fun," she couldn't resist adding, and their eyes got bigger.

Maria closed the door. She was just relieved to see something as normal as teenage making out.

Val saw her friend out later and then came slinking to Maria, shoulders hunched and head ducked. "Am I in trouble?"

"For what? No, of course not. You date whoever you want to." As the girl's shoulders relaxed, Maria added, "I guess I don't I have to take you to the doc for a birth control prescription, do I?"

She fidgeted in place and a blush rose over her cheeks. "Um, no. Not right now."

"You change your mind about that, just let me know. And if you want to talk about anything, I'll listen."

She blushed a little harder, but nodded. "I... yeah, okay. Why were you looking for me?"

"I don't think you should enlist," Maria said, and held up a hand as Val opened her mouth. "Wait, hear me out. I think you should apply to the Academy. If you're set on joining the military, I think you'd do better as an officer. I saw how the girls on the team look to you, even though you're the newest and you haven't played as long. And I think you might rather give orders than take them. You'll have to do both, of course, but even so."

Val blinked. "I hadn't thought about that."

Maria nodded. "It's a competitive process. I'll help you with the application, but you're going to have to keep your grades up and put the work in."

She stood up a little straighter. "I can do that."

"Good. We'll take a look at the application process in the morning, okay?"

"Okay." As Maria turned to go, Val interrupted, "Maria... thanks."

"You don't need to thank me," Maria told her firmly. "This is what I'm here for."


	7. G is for Girlfriend

Lt. Commander Val Shepard went through the corridors of Arcturus Station whistling. It was looking like a damned good day. She'd finished the mission ahead of schedule and with no casualties. The mission reports were done and submitted. A change of orders gave her some leave before her next assignment.

She got to the door of her girlfriend's apartment and entered the keycode, checking the time on her omni-tool as she did. Candace might not be home from work yet; either way, Val could surprise her.

The door unlocked and she let herself in, dropped her bag by the door, and called, "Candace? You home?"

Somewhere there was a squeak, a sound like indrawn breath. Val tried to place it. There wasn't much to the apartment, in all honesty; she could see the whole kitchen and living room from where she stood, so if Candace were home, she had to be back in the bedroom. Val started in that direction, calling again, "Candace? I finished early, so I thought I'd come home and surprise you..." She opened the bedroom door and froze in her tracks.

Her girlfriend was home, all right, and in bed with some dude.

There was a scramble of bodies and Candace's head, her curly hair tousled, poked out from beneath the sheets. "Val, I... I didn't think you'd be back yet."

"Completed the op ahead of schedule," she replied numbly.

"Oh. I..." Candace squirmed up, the covers falling down, making very obvious that she was naked. "This isn't how I wanted you to find out—"

"How long?" Val asked.

"It just happened, and I didn't want to say anything while you were in the field, and—"

"How long?" Val shouted. Her anger sizzled along her skin, and she kept a lid on the biotics with some difficulty.

Both of the people in the bed jumped. "... a couple of months," said Candace.

Val took a deep breath. "Can I talk to you alone?"

"Sure, I..."

"No way," the man interrupted. "I'm not leaving you alone with her."

"I'm not going to hurt her," Val snapped. "You can wait right outside the door if you don't believe me. I'm guessing you know how to let yourself in."

Candace flinched. "It'll be okay, Tom," she said, patting the guy's shoulder.

Val stalked into the living room, fists clenched. In her head, she recited ran through all the mnemonics she'd been taught that helped her keep control. She badly needed to not break every object in the apartment by accident. She took slow, deep breaths.

The guy—Tom—padded through the room with his shoes in one hand, trying to fasten his jeans with the other. They glared at each other. He started to open his mouth, but Val cut him off. "You're not the one I'm interested in talking to."

"Freak," he mumbled, loud enough for her to hear, and went out the door. Val ground her teeth. In the Alliance, she didn't see a lot of the standard human prejudice against biotics.

Candace emerged, tying the sash of her robe. The green satin one Val had gotten her as a birthday present; Val winced at the sight of it. "Why?"

Candace folded her arms. "Why did I start something with Tom, or why didn't I tell you?"

"Either. Both." Val started pacing, letting her energy bleed out through motion. "We've been together almost a year. I didn't know anything was wrong."

"You're hardly ever here," Candace said. A nasal tone crept into her strained voice. "You're always off on missions. Sure, we have fun when you're on leave, but I'm not getting any younger. I'm starting to want, you know. Stability. Someone who will be there for me."

She was whining, Val noted distantly, and somehow the ridiculousness of that from a grown woman cut through her rage. She stopped, planting herself in front of the other woman. "You're only twenty-seven. And you knew I was a marine when we got together. You said it wasn't going to be a problem."

Candace shrugged, helplessly. "I didn't know what it was going to be like."

"And you didn't tell me because...?" Val shook her head. "Never mind. I guess it really doesn't matter."

Candace bit her lip. "I just didn't know what to say."

"Good to know you'd rather be a cheater and a liar than figure out what to say."

Candace flinched. "I never lied!"

"You sure as hell weren't honest." Val headed back toward the door and picked up her duffel bag, looping the strap over her shoulder. "I don't think I left anything else here, did I? So I should just go."

Part of her was still hoping Candace would try to stop her, but she didn't.

She walked out the door and found Tom on the other side, his shoes now on his feet, his hair mussed. Val gave him a withering look and marched off. She really wanted to hit something, but she wasn't going to stoop to hitting either of them.

She ended up at a bar halfway across the station. She drank a lot. Thanks to her biotics-fueled metabolism, not enough to stay drunk. She hooked up with a handsome Asian guy she met at the bar. At least they both knew what was going on, she thought afterward, sweating out the last of the alcohol in her morning workout. One night, no attachments, no expectations on either side.

It was a relief when her leave was canceled and she was ordered to report to Anderson on his new ship, the Normandy.

Weeks later, Val gave up on her fitful attempts to sleep, threw on some clothes, and padded out to make herself some tea. She settled at a table in the tiny mess hall with her cup. At this hour, the ship was quiet. She sometimes had trouble sleeping in the best of times, and too much had happened in the last few weeks. A new crew, an unexpected new appointment, a clandestine mission; they all kept her days busy, and when she closed her eyes, the horrors the beacon had shown her blurred together with the burning fields of Eden Prime and the burning homes of Mindoir. She should probably see Dr. Chakwas for a sleep aid. The only good thing about all the chaos and action, as far as she was concerned, was that it had pushed the break-up with Candace far to the back of her mind.

The door to the medbay opened and she looked up, startled, but it wasn't the doctor; instead, it was the newest addition to the crew, Liara T'Soni, wandering out with a datapad in her hand. She started, too, looking up. "Oh! Shepard! I am sorry, I did not expect to see anyone at this hour."

"Don't worry about it. I was having a little trouble sleeping, that's all." Val waved at the seat across from her. "You can join me, if you like."

Liara hesitated, swaying slightly from one foot to the other, before taking the offered chair. "Is it... the beacon?" she asked, her large blue eyes earnest.

"Partly," Val admitted. "What about you? Are you having trouble sleeping?"

Liara looked down. "Asari sleep cycles differ from those of humans. And I am not yet accustomed to the routine of the ship."

"Hm." Liara was the only team member who wasn't quite a volunteer, though Shepard was extremely glad for her help. It must be an adjustment for her, living among aliens on a military vessel.

Liara rubbed the side of her neck. "Is there... anything I might do to... assist you? I do not know whether... joining again might alleviate your insomnia, or..."

Shepard shook her head. "I doubt it. No offense. You could distract me, though," she offered, because the asari looked so very downcast.

Liara blinked. "Distract you? How?"

Val smiled. "Talk to me? About anything that isn't bloodshed and destruction, I mean. Something normal."

"Normal." Liara laughed quietly. Val blinked in surprise. She couldn't recall seeing Liara smile before, and the expression utterly transformed her face from merely cute to beautiful. "I doubt I know much about normality, Commander."

"Your normal, then," Val suggested, leaning one elbow on the table. "Scenes from the life of Liara T'Soni, archaeologist."

She laughed again. "Well, I could discuss archaeology all night. I find it interesting, but... it might put you to sleep, I suppose."

"Try me."

"Very well."

Liara started talking, and Val listened. She'd have to admit that she didn't absorb much of the content, but she watched the movement of Liara's soft, violet-tinged lips, and how the texture of her azure skin caught the light, how the skin around her eyes crinkled and a dimple almost formed when she smiled. The sound of the archaeologist's soft, musical voice followed her when she returned to her quarters, and this time her dreams were much more pleasant.


	8. H is for Helmet

Val Shepard opened her eyes and blinked several times. Gradually, the blurry shapes above resolved into the familiar faces—or rather, helmets—of Garrus and Tali, both looking down at her. Down, because she was flat on her back on the ground. She groaned. The last thing she knew, they'd been a firefight. "What happened?" she asked. Everything hurt, she realized, as she started to push herself up from her prone position.

Both of her companions immediately protested, Garrus with some noise between a click and a growl, and Tali with an outright squawk. "Shepard, don't move," she said. "You could have a spinal injury, or—"

"I'm fine." Shepard lifted both arms off the ground, then one foot at a time. "See? Everything moves. Now would someone tell me what _happened_?"

"You ran into a wall," Garrus said. His tone of voice was suspiciously flat and neutral. She gave him a sharp glance, but she couldn't make out his expression through his tinted faceplate.

"Riiiight," she said, remembering. They'd nearly mopped up the Cerberus team; Shepard had seen the opportunity to charge one last assault trooper at the back of the field, but one of the team must have dropped him before she got there, and she'd gone right over him and into a steel bulkhead instead. "How long was I out?"

"Just a few minutes," said Tali, sounding nervous, "but I really think Dr. Chakwas should check you out."

"Yeah, I'll check in when we get back. Someone want to help me up?"

"We weren't sure we should move you..." Tali began, trailing off as Garrus silently extended a hand. Val took it, and he pulled her to her feet in one smooth movement. She groaned and cautiously tested her neck and shoulders. Her neck hurt like hell, and her head ached ferociously, but she was fairly sure it wasn't fatal. She led the way to the shuttle.

"You have a concussion," Dr. Chakwas told her after examination. "Light duty for the next three days. Low-impact physical activity only. No intensive brain work, either. If you notice the slightest bit of eyestrain or headache, stop what you're doing, and report to me."

"Three days? Doc, there's a war on."

Dr. Chakwas gave her a withering look. "The human brain doesn't like being sloshed against the inside of the human skull, Commander. And your brain is the one part of you that isn't laced with cybernetics. Give it some time to heal."

"Fine," Val sighed. They were headed back to the Citadel for some meetings anyway, so the restrictions wouldn't slow things down too much.

Exiting the medbay, she found Garrus leaning against the wall in an ostensibly casual pose, arms crossed, but his mandibles were tight against his jaw, and he gave her a searching look. "Concussion," she told him. "Restricted duty for three days. I should be fine."

"Good to know even running into a wall can't take you down for long," he drawled, but she thought she heard an undercurrent of tension.

She tipped her head toward the elevator. "Come up with me?"

"If you insist," he said, falling in beside her.

They rode up in silence. Under other circumstances, Val might have reached out to take his hand, or leaned against him, or said something flirty. In the present mood, she kept her hands to herself.

Once they got into her quarters, she turned to him and said, "Go on, spit it out."

Garrus blinked. "What?"

She _knew_ she'd explained that particular colloquialism to him before. "Say whatever it is you want to say."

He tilted his head to the side. "What makes you think I want to say anything?"

"Oh, come on, Garrus. You're not that hard to read. You've been giving me _looks_ since the accident. So out with it. Say whatever's on your mind."

He paced toward the steps. For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to say anything at all. Then he turned, sharply, and said. "All right. That was reckless. Irresponsible, even. We had them; we could have easily taken out the remaining troops at range. In fact, Tali and I _did_, after you went down. You're too important to the war effort to risk yourself unnecessarily."

Good. She liked a good argument, and she still felt keyed up from combat, concussion or no. Deliberately, visibly, she rolled her eyes. "I'm trained for close-quarters combat. I know what I'm doing."

"Really?" Sarcasm made the flanging deeper. "You generate mass effect fields and turn yourself into a _projectile_, while _hoping_ you can take your opponents down before they take you down. Tell me how that's not high-risk behavior."

"It's a _calculated_ risk, and you've had plenty of opportunities to see that it's a highly effective tactic."

His mandibles flared. "I had the trooper, Shepard. I would have told you so, even, if you hadn't taken off like a damned rocket before I could."

"You should be familiar with my battlefield tactics by now. I expect you to act accordingly and be ready for a charge."

"Then you should at least wear a damned helmet!"

The argument suddenly entered familiar ground. He'd been after her to wear a helmet since... the day he realized she wouldn't bite his head off for making the suggestion. It had started with polite hints, back on the original _Normandy_, and had escalated to more direct requests, which she had always brushed off. She'd never liked the way a helmet affected her peripheral vision, and now...

She yanked her mind away from that line of thought. "A helmet. That's really rich coming from you, you know that?"

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the rocket might not have nearly killed you if you'd taken one second to put your helmet back on!"

Garrus took a step forward. "_I _had been existing on stims for days. My judgment was shot. What's your excuse?"

"I don't have to justify myself to you—"

Garrus interrupted. "Five minutes and forty seconds."

Val frowned. "What?"

"You were out for five minutes and forty seconds," he repeated. "I timed it. Damn it, Shepard, I'm trying to _help_. I shouldn't have... I had the shot lined up, but you just _went_—"

Val put a hand to her forehead, suddenly ashamed of herself. It was wearing on her, this war, millions of lives lost every day, while Cerberus ate away at them from within, and the Alliance pissed her time and energy away with missions that probably didn't require her personal attention. None of that was Garrus's fault, though. Wordlessly, she held out her arms, taking a step forward, and breathed out a sigh of relief as he caught her in a firm embrace. She held on for a while, pressing her ear to his chest so she could hear the rhythm of his heart. Eventually, she said, "I feel like I can't breathe in a helmet. I never liked them, but since... now I feel closed in."

His arms tightened around her. "Shepard. You never said..."

"Yeah, well. I thought you deserved to know. You were right, it was an unnecessary risk."

He pulled back a little. "Say that again? I'm not sure I quite heard you."

She suppressed a smile. "You were right?"

"Ahh. I like the sound of that."

"Ass," she said, laughing.


	9. I is for Incarcerated

Lieutenant Commander Shepard.

N7 Marine.

Hero of the Blitz.

Awarded the Star of Terra at the age of 22.

First Human Spectre.

Savior of the Citadel.

... had faked her own death and joined up with a terrorist organization. Allegedly. 'Cause decorated war heroes had nothing better to do.

James Vega wasn't sure he believed it. Wasn't sure _what_ to believe. He kept watching the woman, wondering why the hell Anderson had hauled him of all people in to guard her. He wasn't an MP. He'd do what the Old Man said, but he didn't get the logic. Shepard wasn't making any trouble. She was tall, sure, and looked tough enough, but nothing that special. She looked a little off what he remembered from the vids. It took him a couple days to figure out she was missing those scars she had in all the pics.

For all the scuttlebutt buzzing around the commander, he could see for himself she wasn't eight feet tall and didn't eat batarians or geth for breakfast. They said she'd killed three hundred thousand batarians, too. And she sure as hell wasn't denying it. He didn't know what to make of that, either.

When he called her "Commander" after her first hearing, she shook her head and said, "Better not let anyone catch you calling me that, Lieutenant. Pretty sure that rank isn't mine any more."

"What the brass don't know won't hurt them," he replied with a shrug. "Once a marine, always a marine, right?"

She answered with a thin smile. "I guess that's the four-billion-credit question, isn't it?"

That didn't make a damn bit of sense.

She didn't talk a lot, those first few weeks, except in the closed-door hearings. When she came out at the end of the day, her jaw would be tight and her eyes shadowed. She'd gulp down a couple glasses of water. Usually she'd ask to go to the gym, afterward. She had permission to do that, under escort, so James went, too. But he couldn't really do his own workout and still guard the prisoner, so he had to settle for watching her run, lift weights, shoot hoops. It was right up there with watching grass grow.

Finally, he couldn't take it any more. He'd lost count of the number of three-point shots she'd attempted, never a sign of doing anything else. He might be crazy, but he called, "How about some one-on-one?"

She caught the ball and turned toward him. Look at that. She had a real expression for once: surprise. "Sure you're up for it, Vega?" she asked, resting the ball on one hip.

He shrugged off his jacket. Crazy beat bored, any day. "Sure thing, Commander."

Her lips spread into a sly kind of smile. "Bring it on, then," she said, and tossed him the ball.

She might not look like much, but she played _dirty_. No trash talking, but she was fucking serious; she played like somebody's damn life depended on her getting the ball away from him.

"Ouch!" James yelped, after Shepard slammed her elbow into him for the twentieth time.

She backed off immediately. "Sorry." The ball slipped out of her hands and rolled away. Her face had sunk into a frown.

James grinned. "No worries, Shepard. Didn't think you'd hit that hard in a friendly game, is all."

She didn't smile. "Yeah. Wasn't thinking." She was taking it awfully hard. He wasn't made of glass. He opened his mouth, but she turned away without waiting for a response.

Okay, maybe there was something to the Shepard legend after all, James thought as he walked her back to her quarters. She was damn sure stronger than she looked, maybe tougher than he'd thought. Reminded him a little of Captain Toni, now that he thought about it.

At least he'd given as good as he'd gotten. He'd seen a bruise or two on her arms before she put her jacket back on.

Bruises were gone by next day's workout, though. That was weird. Pale skin like that shouldn't heal up that quick.

There came a day when Shepard wasn't summoned to the Defense Committee. James walked her to her morning workout, watched her run and lift weights, walked her back. He checked in on her a couple of hours later and found her pacing the room. "You need something, Commander?"

She waved him off impatiently. "Just Shepard is fine, James. I told you that before. What I need is a distraction."

His eyebrows went up, and he squashed his first three responses to that. He was still coming up with a fourth when Shepard gave him a look. "You play cards, Vega? Are we allowed to do that?"

"Uh... sure." Nothing in his orders said he couldn't talk to the prisoner. Actually, Anderson's orders had been: "Keep her from climbing the walls if you can."

He had to borrow a deck of cards from Corporal Yang, and then brought them back and presented them with a flourish. "What's your game, Shepard? Poker?"

She cracked the deck in half and shuffled. "Nah, not that much fun with two. I was thinking cribbage."

"Cribbage," he said flatly.

She looked up with a smile. "If you don't know how to play, I'll teach you."

"Oh, I know how to play."

Turned out he couldn't bluff his way through it. Shepard's smile got wolfish as she explained the rules, using an omni-tool to keep score since they didn't have a proper board. "It's a fine old Navy tradition, Vega. You oughta know the game."

"Bullshit," he grunted.

"Swear to God. Tradition in the submarine fleet of the good old US of A, back to the 19-somethings."

"This look like a submarine to you, Shepard?"

Her smile grew fixed. "Might as well be. I'm sure not getting outside." She pointed a finger at him. "You just don't like it 'cause you're losing."

After that, they played cards a lot. She was serious about that, too. No chitchat, hardly ever cracked a smile, focused on the cards like there was nothing else in the world. She never fucking let up, as far as he could tell. Maybe that was what it took to be a goddamned war hero, but even so, it was kinda scary.

Maybe that was what it took to be a mass murderer, too.

They got bored with cribbage after about a week. Shepard kept coming up with new card games to play, each one more obscure than the last. He knew her extranet connection was locked down tight, so how she kept coming up with these old-ass games was a mystery to him. "Hell, Shepard," he said after one, throwing his cards down in disgust. "Where do you find this shit?"

She smirked. "I have my ways, James."

He fired up his omni-tool and looked up the game himself, then shook his head in disbelief. "This crap is so old, mi abuela hasn't heard of it."

She shrugged and leaned back, saying nothing. Her gaze strayed to the window.

The sun was setting outside. They'd be bringing her her dinner soon. He watched the light play across her face, her eyes distant, and found himself saying, "Can I ask you a question, Shepard?"

"You gonna listen to the answer?" she replied, not looking at him.

Well, that said about all he needed to know about the hearings, didn't it?

She shook herself and looked him in the eye. She looked tired, he realized suddenly, dark circles under her eyes, but she met his gaze squarely. "Go ahead."

"You really blew up a mass relay?"

She blew out a breath. "Yeah."

"You do it for revenge?"

Her eyes narrowed. "No. I don't like batarians. If you know anything about me, you know why. But that's not why I did it."

Her tone was challenging. James challenged back. "Why'd you do it, then?"

"Because I had every reason to believe we'd all be dead by now if I didn't."

They looked at each other. There was a spark in her eyes that wasn't there before, something cold and furious in spite of her fatigue. Her mouth was pressed in a straight line.

No doubt in his mind she believed it. James nodded, once, slowly. Shepard blinked. She blinked again as he stood up, looking down from his full height. From up here, she looked pretty ordinary.

Looks were deceiving.

"Totally _loco_," he said easily. "See you tomorrow, Commander. You're gonna have to work hard to find a worse game than that, though."

She grinned, and the spell was broken. "I told you, I have my ways."

* * *

_This chapter beta-read by the excellent Niamh St. George, whose suggestions improved it immensely._


	10. J is for Judgment

Space on the Citadel was at something of a premium after Sovereign's attack, so the _Normandy_ crew was still housed on the ship. Liara hesitated for a moment as she approached Shepard's door, but the lock glowed green and a muffled voice inside called _come in_ when she knocked.

She found Shepard sitting on the bed, leaning on a nest of pillows. In spite of her greeting, her gaze was fixed on the distance, and she looked tired. Liara came to a halt at the foot of the bed. "Shepard?"

She blinked, but still didn't look at Liara. "Still think I made the wrong call?"

Liara looked down, her fingers twisting together. "I... I don't know, Shepard." She had to admit it, she had been aghast when Shepard ordered the Alliance fleet to concentrate on Sovereign, allowing the _Destiny Ascension_, its crew, and the Council to be destroyed. She still was not sure which choice she considered correct, but she didn't think her desire to reflect and analyze the situation would help Shepard now. "Perhaps you were right. I know the Alliance would have lost... a great many ships."

Shepard's lips turned up, but there was no mirth in her eyes. "Don't think I'm not second-guessing myself. I just..." She shook her head. "I thought we needed to take Sovereign down as quickly as we could."

"It may be that fewer lives were lost this way," Liara offered.

Shepard nodded. "I know the consequences, though. They're going to say I preserved human lives at the cost of alien lives. Asari lives," Shepard amended. "The crew of the _Destiny Ascension_ was mostly asari, wasn't it?"

"It was. But, Shepard, no one who knows you would think you were..." Liara struggled to find the right word. A dozen slurs dashed through her mind, all of them too distasteful to utter. She finished, rather weakly, "... anti-alien."

Shepard's smile grew a little, and she looked up at Liara for the first time. "Ah, that's the thing about sudden fame, Liara. Suddenly, everyone thinks they know you, and ninety percent of them are wrong. I've done this before, you know," she added. "The hero gig. After Elysium."

"I see." Liara hesitated, difficult. In spite of what she and Shepard had shared, there was still so much she did not know. Her own life, though longer, seemed terribly sheltered in contrast. She searched her mind for some words of comfort. "I might have made a different choice, Shepard. But I do not fault you for your decision."

"I'm glad." An expression of relief might have crossed Shepard's face, but her eyes drifted away again. "It's hard not to question my own judgment, once the fight is over."

Liara bit her lip. No matter her own discomfort with Shepard's command, she hated to see her look so troubled. Tentatively she settled down next to Shepard and took her hand, lacing their fingers together, admiring the contrasting colors of their skins. "If anyone accuses you of bigotry, I shall have words for them," she announced. Shepard laughed, and Liara smiled, pleased to have shaken the distant look from her face.

#

They'd made it back through the Omega-4 relay two days before, and they'd been working nearly round the clock, dealing with the damage to the ship. Garrus thought a good number of the crew were burying themselves in work so they didn't have to deal with their memories of the Collector Base, and he didn't blame them. There were a lot of haunted looks, and a lot of walking wounded. Shepard was at the top of the list of the latter. She'd been everywhere, shoring up morale with a kind word or a clap on the back, in spite of her own still-healing injuries. She'd finally disappeared for a while, and he hoped she was getting some rest, but he'd come up anyway, just to make sure.

The door opened for him, so he entered. Once inside, he hesitated, not entirely sure how free he should be to barge into her quarters. "Shepard?"

"Over here."

He stopped at the top of the steps. She was sitting on the couch, staring at the darting, brightly colored fish. If she hadn't spoken, he wouldn't have thought she was aware of his presence at all. Then she said, "Did I make the right call?"

Garrus gave her an incredulous look. "Are you kidding me? Of course you did."

Shepard sighed before actually looking at him, managing a wry smile. "I mean... we might have been able to learn from the base. Found evidence for the Council. Something."

"And you'd trust Cerberus to study it? After Project Overlord? And that Reaper derelict?"

She blew out a breath. "No."

"Exactly," he agreed, coming down the steps to perch on the couch beside her. "So what's this really about?"

Shepard leaned her head on the back of the couch, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't know. Second-guessing, that's all. You make a judgment call in the heat of the moment, and then afterwards, you think about all the other ways it could have gone."

"I get that." Garrus was quiet for a moment, thinking back over choices of his own. He watched her, apparently lost in thought, and then said, "If you'd rather be alone—"

"Not at all." Though he'd left a moderate distance between them, she shifted over and leaned into his shoulder, her hand stroking the unscarred side of his face. "There are some things I'm not having second thoughts about."

He slid his arm around her and pulled her closer, silently marveling at the supple way she molded against him. "Glad to hear it," he said, not able to hide his relief from his voice.

"I'm glad you're here," she murmured.

"As long as you need me."

#

Three choices.

Shepard's brain almost refused to accept it. It was... ludicrous, bizarre, that this thing, this AI or Reaper projection or whatever the hell it was that called itself the Catalyst, was forcing her to make one last judgment call on behalf of the galaxy. If she'd had any energy left, she might have railed against it, screamed her defiance, talked or thought her way out to a different solution. If she'd had her squad with her—

She couldn't think about that now.

She felt faint. Her armor was mostly gone, and her ears were ringing. She knew she'd lost a lot of blood... was still bleeding, she could feel the trickle down her side. All the medi-gel she'd pumped into her system was just barely keeping the pain at bay. She could feel it there, in her hip and her arm and her side and her head, waiting to pounce and drag her down. She didn't have a lot of time left. One last decision to make. She had to make sure she made it before—

It sounded like anything she chose was going to kill her. She wished she could be more surprised about that. And the thing—the Catalyst—she was not, _was not_ going to think of it as the child she'd seen back in Vancouver— for all she knew, it was lying through its virtual teeth. In which case, she couldn't be sure of anything. But she didn't have the brainpower left to sort things out. Not when she was getting weaker by the moment.

There was really only one choice. Her orders were "eliminate the Reapers," not "become one with the Reapers." That was kind of a relief. She'd already had to make too many judgment calls.

"I'm sorry," she said, though there wasn't anyone there to hear. She wasn't sure who she meant the sentiment for. EDI or the geth (if the Catalyst wasn't lying), the rest of her team, anyone expecting her to come back—

She _really _couldn't think about that, her other order. Her vision blurred. She blinked furiously as she took a few halting steps in the right direction. The projection said nothing, did not interfere as she dragged herself forward.

She raised her gun, and fired.


	11. K is for Keepsake

Tali hesitated at the door to Shepard's office, winding what she carried through her fingers. It was probably... silly of her, or presumptuous... she didn't even know if humans really did this sort of thing, or... she was suddenly, keenly conscious of the human crew members passing to and fro on the crew deck, near her. She gathered up her courage, straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders, and entered.

Shepard greeted her with a smile, looking up from her desk. Her arm was still bandaged from the Battle of the Citadel, but she wasn't wearing a sling any more. "Hey, Tali. What can I do for you?"

"It's not... what you can do for me," said Tali. "I wanted to thank you, Shepard, for— for everything. For letting me come aboard, for helping me with my pilgrimage—" She was a little overwhelmed when she thought about it. She'd never expected to find such acceptance, such _friendship_, outside the Flotilla.

Shepard shook her head, though. "Tali, you've more than earned _my_ thanks, with all the work you've put in."

"Thank you," Tali said, her fingers twitching. "But I—well—the point is, I wanted to give you this." Stiffly, she held out the article she held.

Shepard took it from her, letting the cloth unfurl. It was a scarf dyed in a brilliant shade of green, shading from light to dark across the width, the whole thing lavishly embroidered with swirling, abstract shapes in golden-yellow thread. There wasn't a lot of room to display artwork on the crowded ships of the Flotilla, but quarian traditions of textile arts had survived, splashes of color and texture to brighten bulkheads and environmental suits. "Oh, Tali," she said. "It's beautiful—but—"

"It's for you," Tali said firmly. "I'll be going back to the Migrant Fleet before long, and I wanted you to have it. I don't know about humans, but we like to give gifts to our—to our friends."

"Of course we're friends." To Tali's surprise, Shepard rose and wrapped her arms around her. "Thank you. I love it."

#

"Shepard?"

Freedom's Progress was disturbing enough without seeing the dead come back to life. Tali blinked at the human woman in front of her, wearing black armor still shiny with newness. She blinked again, but it still looked like Shepard.

"Yeah, it's me," she said. "Remember the geth data I gave you? Did it help you finish your pilgrimage?"

"Yes, it did," Tali said slowly. She didn't think anyone else had been aware of that incident, but she couldn't be sure. "And what did I give you?"

The answer was prompt. "A scarf. Green and gold." Her smile wavered. "I'm sorry, I don't have it any more. I wasn't carrying it... that day, so it must have gone down with the _Normandy_."

Tali nodded, satisfied that it was really Shepard, though she regretted the loss of the token.

#

Before boarding her ship with Veetor and the surviving members of her team, Tali drew Shepard aside. "I'm sorry I can't come with you."

Shepard shook her head. "I understand. You have your own responsibilities."

Tali bit her lip. "Shepard—do you want to come with us?" She wasn't sure if they had levo-amino supplies, but they'd work something out if they had to.

Shepard shook her head. "I can't just turn my back on the colony problem. If Cerberus is prepared to investigate, I don't think I can pass that up."

Tali nodded. She did understand, much as she hated what Cerberus had done. "Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked, her hands twisting together anxiously.

Shepard blew out a breath. "Can you get in touch with the old crew? I'm fairly sure my communications are monitored."

"I'll try." Privately, Tali was doubtful. She'd had difficulty getting through to any of her former squadmates. Liara answered her mail, but only in the briefest terms; Kaidan's messages always seemed to be delayed or redacted; she wasn't sure Wrex even had a reliable extranet connection; and as far as she could tell, Garrus hadn't checked his messages in months. But, for Shepard, she'd try again. "Send me a message if you need anything."

"Thanks, Tali." Shepard's smile seemed genuine. "I appreciate it."

#

After Haestrom, Tali made the rounds of the ship, still a little disoriented. Only days ago she'd been leading a quarian mission, and now her team was dead—all but one—and here she was, on a _Normandy_ that wasn't itself. The thrum of the engine through the decking was not quite the same, the lighting was all off, and the crew was all wearing _that_ uniform instead of Alliance blue. The engineering staff seemed competent, at least, and everyone was polite enough. Tali looked over every nook and cranny of the ship, inspecting all the systems, stopping for a quick chat with Joker, a hug from Dr. Chakwas, and another quick chat with Garrus, who assured her the weapons systems were well under control. She had to laugh, really; she'd been surprised to hear Shepard's voice over the comm system on Haestrom, but once she'd known Shepard was there, she hadn't been surprised at all to find Garrus in tow, even though he'd been out of touch for ages. It simply seemed inevitable to find one with the other. _Later_ she would corner him and find out what he'd been doing all that time, but for now she was more concerned with her captain.

Having finished her inspection, Tali made her way to the upper deck and hesitated at the door. The AI's cool voice said, "Shepard notified me you had permission to enter when you arrived, Tali'Zorah. Shall I inform her of your presence?"

Tali scowled at the corner the voice seemed to be coming from. "That won't be necessary." The door opened at her touch.

She blinked in surprise at the sheer size of the cabin within, and the wall of glass to her left, holding back... water... and _fish_? "Keelah. What a waste of resources," she said, before she thought.

Shepard laughed. "Yeah, I'd have to agree."

Tali turned to face her; she was in Cerberus black and white, but it was Shepard, all right, with her hair pulled back like always and a weary smile. She reached out for a hug and Tali willingly returned it. It was good to feel her solid and real. "Let's sit down and talk," she said, nodding toward the massive couch, and Tali followed her down the steps.

"How are you, really, Shepard?" she asked, settling herself onto the overstuffed piece of furniture.

"I'm all right," she said with a shrug. "The team is coming together. But how are you, Tali? It looked like Haestrom got pretty rough."

Tali drew a deep, careful breath. Speaking of a _waste_. "It did. I'm... not sure I'm ready to talk about it, Shepard, if that's okay."

Shepard simply nodded. "You know where to find me if you do want to talk about it."

"Thank you."

"It's good to see you leading a team, though. You deserve it. I'm glad to see you get some recognition."

Tali laughed a little. "Is that what you call it? It's been one job after another ever since I got back to the Fleet."

Shepard smiled. "Then tell me about that."

And so Tali found herself talking about Fleet politics and geth research and other quarian science projects. She knew Shepard probably wasn't getting all the science, but she laughed and asked questions in the right places anyway, and it was relaxing. Reassuring.

Eventually Shepard's eyes widened and she sprang off the couch. "I almost forgot! Look what I found." She went over to her closet and returned bearing a green object. It took Tali a moment to recognize it as the scarf she'd given Shepard two years ago.

She looked up, startled. "I thought you said it was lost with the _Normandy_?"

"Yeah." Shepard sat down again, letting the scarf unfold and running it through her hands. "I went to the crash site." She shivered. "Cold as hell, and debris everywhere, but part of my cabin was intact. Had to chip it out of the ice, but once it thawed out, it looked fine."

Tali reached out and touched the corner, wishing she could really feel the fine fabric. "It's _idayo_—quarian silk, I think they usually call it. It's hard to come by these days, since the plant was native to Rannoch, but it's durable."

Shepard nodded, the corner of her mouth turning up. "Tougher than it looks. Like you, I guess."

"Like you, too." Tali leaned forward, wishing Shepard could really see her face. "I'm really glad you're back, Shepard. Even with Cerberus, and everything."

For a moment, Shepard faltered. "I hate to drag you along on this—it's going to be a dangerous mission—"

"Shepard, you're like—like a sister," Tali said. "Of course I'm with you."

Shepard's eyebrows flew up, and her smile came back, bright and wide. "Really? I never had a sister, but... I feel the same way." She cleared her throat. "Anyway. I'm really glad you're here."

Tali smiled back. "So am I."


	12. L is for Leadership

They were all silent on the shuttle ride up from Aeia. Once they'd gotten through decontamination—extra-important given the known toxicity of the planet's vegetation—Jacob stalked off toward the armory without a word. Val Shepard watched him go, making a mental note. She'd check in with him later and make sure he wasn't taking his father's actions too hard.

As for herself, what they'd discovered on the planet had left her feeling disgusted with humankind in general. "I could really use a drink," she announced to the air.

"I couldn't agree more," Garrus growled.

Val gave him a careful sideways look. He'd hardly said two words to her—unless he was directly addressed—since they'd returned from the Citadel. He was obviously still pissed that she'd interfered with his plan to kill his erstwhile friend. His choice, she told herself, not hers. He could have taken the shot, at the last, and hadn't.

But the truth was she'd forced him to reconsider, and they both knew it.

Over the last few days, he'd reverted to a stiff professionalism, still competent and reliable, but she missed their usual easy camaraderie. Not to mention the _more-than-camaraderie_ feelings she hadn't yet figured out what to do with. He'd said he didn't want to talk about it, and she'd been giving him space, but she was reluctant to pass up an opportunity like this. "Want to join me at the port side bar?" she offered.

He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck from side to side. "Sure."

Mercifully, Kasumi was out, possibly playing cards down in engineering. Shepard dug out a bottle of Scotch for herself and a second bottle of turian brandy for Garrus. She poured them each a glass and took a seat on one of the stools. She sipped hers in silence. When she glanced over at Garrus, he'd already finished his and was pouring a second. She frowned, trying to think of a conversational opener, if only to slow him down, but Garrus spoke first.

"Bad situation, down there on Aeia."

Her hand tightened on her glass. "Yeah." It made her sick to think about, the entire crew victimized by their captain's god complex, used for their labor and their bodies. "He didn't deserve the easy way out," she muttered.

"Mm."

She wasn't sure whether to take that as agreement or not. She stole another look at him, and found him staring into space, eyes distant and mandibles tight. She took a deep breath. "So, just how angry with me are you right now?"

"I'm not."

"Really?" Val gave him her most skeptical look, but he still wasn't looking. "You're doing a remarkably good imitation of being angry at me."

Garrus shook his head. "I thought it over, and I'm not. You were right, about Sidonis. I'm just wondering what I did wrong."

She raised her eyebrows. "What makes you think you did anything wrong?"

He shot her an inscrutable glance, finished his glass, and poured himself another. "I think the results speak for themselves, Shepard. I tried to... keep tabs on everyone, like you do. Anyone could come to me with any problem. Most of them did, one time or another. Even Sidonis. I don't know why he didn't talk to me, if he was afraid."

On impulse, she reached out and put her hand over his. "You didn't necessarily do anything wrong, Garrus. You can never know everything about another person. Hell, I don't really know what's going on in your head, and I probably know you better than anyone else on the crew."

He shook his head slowly, eyes on their joined hands. "Maybe you're right. I just... I know you wouldn't have let that happen. I tried, but..." He shook his head. "I guess Taylor wasn't the only one who couldn't handle leadership." He swallowed down half his glass.

Val stared at him in utter bewilderment. "You are not seriously putting yourself in the same category as Ronald Taylor."

He shrugged. "We both failed as leaders, Shepard."

Her hand tightened around his, and she silently cursed the reinforced fabric of his gloves. "_Garrus_. It's not the same at all. Would you _ever_ deliberately victimize your team? Poison them? Turn them into your playthings? Put off using a distress beacon, just to gratify yourself?"

He shifted on his chair, looking uncomfortable, still not meeting her eyes. "No, I— okay, I get what you're trying to say."

"Then why would you compare yourself to that man, even for a minute? Taylor chose to be like that, Garrus. He got up every damned morning and decided not to push that button. You—" She took a deep breath and fought through the thickness in her throat. "—in a lot of ways, you took on a harder task than I did. Tracking down Saren was a straightforward mission objective. It just got complicated along the way. 'Clean up Omega' sounds like anything but. Did it ever occur to you that maybe you were just _unlucky_?"

Garrus looked up, with an uncharacteristically wide-eyed stare. He shook his head slowly, and Val continued, her heart pounding. "I don't know what you think I am, but I screw up, just like anyone. I didn't survive Mindoir or Elysium because I was some great leader. I got lucky, and I made the most of my chances, that's all. And on the _Normandy_, my O2 line broke, and that was a piece of bad luck, all right? And even if we discount luck, at the absolute _worst_, you made a mistake. You trusted the wrong person at the wrong time, after months working together. That's an easy mistake to make. I could have done the same thing." The more she talked, the more agitated she felt, and the more she was having her own second thoughts. "You know what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I interfered on the Citadel. I should have let you handle things your way, or at least talked things over with you earlier. I just... didn't like seeing you that way, that's all." She'd acted on instinct, really, but she couldn't deny now that if she'd been in Garrus's position, she might have wanted Sidonis dead just as much.

He blinked at her, several times. He opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it, and shook his head. When he did speak, she wondered what he'd originally intended to say. "I made a lot of mistakes, Shepard. If I hadn't brought them into the operation, they'd still be alive."

"Would they?" she asked quietly. "Or would they have died some other way? I'm sure you know better than I how many people die on Omega every day."

Garrus swallowed and looked down. Shepard went on, "Did you go recruiting, or did they offer to join you?"

His shoulders shifted. "They offered."

"And they were Omega veterans, that's what you said before. Do you think they didn't know what they were in for? Do you think they didn't suspect Omega would hit back, one day?"

He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. Val pressed on, quieter. "You offered them something to fight for. You said it yourself: you gave them hope. Together you accomplished more than you could have done alone. You gave them the chance to make a difference, if only for a while. You ran a pretty tight operation for, what, eighteen months?"

"Yeah," he said softly. "About that."

"And now you're wondering if it was worth it, right? Ask the people you helped in those eighteen months. You made people's lives a little less painful and desperate for a while. That's not nothing. Considering what you were up against, that's quite a lot of something. What happened in the end—that was the fault of Sidonis and the mercs, not you." Her voice dropped at the end, hoping she was getting through. She'd had to piece together the story from the few things he was willing to say, and she didn't want to watch him sink further into guilt and self-blame if she could help it.

Garrus shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was rough, flanging wildly. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Shepard. I do. But it doesn't change the fact that my team trusted me, and they died because of it. That's my responsibility, no matter what might have happened otherwise."

"So you still think it was a mistake to let them join you?"

He looked away, and didn't answer. Val sighed. "Okay, Garrus, help me out here. I made a decision once. You tell me whether it was a mistake. I let someone join my team. Put him in a position to see and do and decide all sorts of new things. Nearly got him killed, a couple times. I could have said no; he would have stayed where he was, maybe done something good there." His eyes had snapped to hers as she spoke, and she leaned forward for emphasis. "So you tell me. Did I make a mistake? Should I have said, 'No, thanks, detective, I can handle Saren on my own'? Is everything that's happened to you since that day my fault?"

He blinked again. "Shepard—no—" For the first time, he gripped back. "I... wouldn't want you to change that decision. There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

She let out the breath she'd been holding on a slow exhale. "I'm really glad you said that."

His healthy mandible flicked out in a weak smile. Val smiled back. After a moment, she picked up her glass and added tartly, "Now could you try to stop blaming yourself for things you couldn't control?"

"You can't just let it lie, can you? Always have to drive the point home," Garrus grumbled.

Her smile turned into a grin. That was the most normal thing he'd said in days. They might just be all right.


	13. M is for Medal

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

She found it difficult even to ask, considering the superior officer in front of her was David Anderson, practically a legend among the Alliance marines. But she steeled herself and asked, and Anderson nodded. "Go ahead, Lieutenant Shepard."

Val swallowed but kept her spine straight. "I don't really think I deserve this. Sir."

His dark eyes turned intent, maybe curious. "And why do you think that, Lieutenant?"

She restrained herself from fidgeting, but she couldn't quite stop her shoulders from tensing under her dress uniform. "I didn't do anything that extraordinary, sir. There were a lot of other people involved in the defense of Elysium. I was just... in the wrong place at the wrong time." Shore leave. She'd been on _shore leave_, not even a full year of service under her belt since she'd gotten her commission, and the damned batarians had to strike the place she was trying to _relax_. It would have been funny if there weren't so many dead civilians to show for it.

Anderson nodded again, one sharp movement. "I see. Then perhaps I was misinformed; it's not the case that you organized civilians into a workable defense force and repelled the raiders almost single-handedly for hours?"

This time she had to stop herself from flinching. She'd lost track of time; she'd used biotics to pile debris into a makeshift barricade, but she'd had to severely restrict her usage of biotic blasts otherwise. She only had so many ration bars, and knew she couldn't afford to run herself down to the point where she might pass out. So she'd relied on her guns, and fortunately she'd had enough by that time that she'd been able to swap them out when they overheated, keeping up a steady barrage of fire. The time had all blurred together into a haze of gunfire, while the ground shook from periodic bombardment. Her focus had narrowed to what was right in front of her. She hadn't known how many hours had passed until after the fact, when an Alliance medic told her while installing a saline drip into her arm. "I was only doing my duty, sir," she said. "As an Alliance officer, it was my responsibility to do whatever I could to repel the assault. That—" She indicated the Star of Terra, glimmering in its box— "is for distinguished service above and beyond the call. Sir."

"Even though you were off-duty at the time?"

"I suppose you could say duty called, sir." Exploded, more like, with a big damned bomb taking out the colony's communications hub.

She thought she saw a flicker of a smile on Anderson's face. Encouraged, she went on, "I don't believe in 'single-handed,' sir. What I did was only possible with the support of others." She'd met dozens of people throughout that day. She knew not all of them had made it. There were others she wasn't sure about. There was a kid named Danny, probably fourteen or fifteen, who'd turned out to be a pretty good shot; and Nakamura and Owusu, from the militia; Mendoza and Schmitt, a couple of chemists who'd made some improvised explosives; an Elysium cop called Peterson, who'd nearly died protecting a bunch of kids from the local elementary school, and Ana Nguyen, the kids' teacher, who'd saved his life through some well-timed medical assistance. And Teri Escobar, from Mindoir—she'd gone away to school before the attack and hadn't been there when the slavers hit, but Val hadn't seen her in seven years or so. She'd dated Teri's younger brother once. Laying eyes on Teri again had been like seeing a ghost, if a ghost looked years older, with a round pregnant belly and a shocked expression of her own. Teri could still handle a rifle, too.

Val wanted to remember them all, turning their names and faces over in her head like a refrain, because it sure as hell seemed like no one else was going to do it.

She shook herself out of her reverie and returned her attention to Anderson. He was smiling for real, now, which was almost unsettling. "I've read the reports, you know. You might be surprised how many accounts by other survivors mention you."

She frowned. The corner of Anderson's mouth turned up just a tiny bit further. "Lieutenant Shepard was instrumental in keeping up morale and organizing defenders, they said. Couldn't have done it without Shepard, they said. Impressed by Shepard's poise under fire, they said. Should I go on?"

Val's lips tightened, but she shook her head. Anderson continued, "Which is why you're going to take this medal. Listen. What you did on Elysium was immensely important. Elysium is the linchpin of our entire colonization effort in the Skyllian Verge. It's critical to our economy and it's critical to our morale. We cannot afford to lose it, and believe me, there's going to be reprisal for this attack."

She opened her mouth to speak—she knew all this, it had been part of her coursework at the Academy—but he quelled her with a glance. "The thing is, Lieutenant, you're right. No one works alone. But people like their stories and they like their heroes, and you're the woman of the hour. You make a good story: the colony orphan made good, turning her life to service, saving another colony." Her frown deepened, but Anderson continued, "Don't give me that look. What you did on Elysium matters to all the people you helped there, and now it matters to the entire Alliance. So you're going to go out there and speak to the reporters, and you're going to do the entire publicity junket that's been lined up for you. Be as humble as you like. People will eat it up with a spoon. Talk about the others all you like. People will eat that up, too. But right now, you're the face of Elysium's defense, and if you don't like it, you'd damn well better pretend to, because like it or not, you're a hero and a role model right now. Do you understand me?"

She didn't like it. It seemed dishonest. But she understood what he was saying. If she tried to see this as another kind of service, maybe she could manage it. "Yes, sir."

"And when you're done with your publicity tour, I want to see you in the next round of Interplanetary Combatives Training."

Val blinked, incredulous. He wanted her at N-school? ICT was for the best of the best. No shame in washing out, really, when even being asked was an honor. Something she'd hardly dared to hope for, and hadn't expected to attain for a few years yet. Did David Anderson seriously think her actions merited that? The idea took her breath away. Her heartbeat felt loud and heavy in her ears. She was probably staring at him like an idiot.

She was proud that she managed to avoid stammering when she said, "Yes, sir."

He gave her one last sharp nod, and the smallest hint of a smile, before he left the room.

She looked down at the Star of Terra, pristine in its case, and slowly picked it up and fastened it in the correct place on her uniform. It reflected the light, brilliant on its blue-and-green ribbon, as she looked herself over in the mirror. "N1," she said to herself, and straightened her shoulders. No. Think bigger. "N7." She nodded at herself. "Woman of the hour. I can do that."

She turned from the mirror, took a deep breath, and walked out to face the press.


	14. N is for Nightmares

Shepard woke up with a gasp and a jerk. She lay awake, staring into the dark, trying to re-orient herself.

The familiar hum of the ship's engines. The quiet burbling of the fish tank. The slight rasp of breathing. She was on the _Normandy_, in her quarters. Gradually, her racing heart slowed down, but she still felt too tense to sleep. She sat up, cautiously, and raked a hand through her hair, tangled from the pillow. Fragments of her nightmares still danced on her eyelids when she shut her eyes. The Protheans, again. The screaming of a dying civilization was almost refreshing, after the much more dark and tangled nightmares she'd been having since leaving Earth.

It was the middle of the night watch, but there was no way she was going back to sleep easily. She glanced at the other side of the bed. For a wonder, she'd managed to avoid waking Garrus, in spite of her gasping and thrashing about. He wasn't usually such a heavy sleeper, so he must be thoroughly exhausted. It stood to reason, she supposed. He'd been burning the candle at both ends lately, between accompanying her on most ground missions and assisting the Primarch in coordinating the Hierarchy's strategy at odd hours. He looked entirely peaceful in sleep, sprawled on his side, mostly buried under the covers. He liked to sleep warm and tended to yank the blankets over to his side if she wasn't careful. She found herself smiling at him, fondly, and probably foolishly.

If she stayed in bed, she'd be restless, and then she _would_ wake him. Better to put herself elsewhere. She could go down to the mess hall and make some tea, maybe. She eased herself out of bed, slowly and quietly, but Garrus didn't stir. The blankets had come untucked and one bare two-toed foot protruded; she tugged down the blanket to cover it again before throwing on the nearest clothes.

The lights were on as she stepped off the elevator onto the crew deck; not unusual in a working vessel, even at this hour. She wouldn't mind a little company, even.

But Val hesitated as she rounded the corner into the mess hall and found Liara at a table with a datapad and a steaming cup of something herbal-smelling. She and the asari had talked when they first got underway; she'd told Liara, as gently as she could, that she no longer felt for her the way she had once, and Liara knew about Garrus—well, she was the Shadow Broker, likely she knew almost anything she cared to—but there had been a certain unavoidable strain between them.

Liara looked up and saw her while she was still making up her mind. "Oh! Shepard," she said. "Is everything all right?"

Val gave up and entered the mess hall, heading over to the galley to heat water and rummage through the supply of tea. The kettle Liara must have used was still on the stove, hot. "Couldn't sleep, that's all."

"Ah." Liara was quiet for a moment. "Nightmares again?"

Having found the herbal tea she was looking for, Shepard turned around. "Yeah." She took a closer look at Liara, noticing the deep violet shadows under her eyes. "What about you?"

"I—" Liara half-shrugged, looking down at her datapad. "It's difficult, sometimes. Too many things to keep track of."

Shepard frowned, taking her mug with its steeping bag and joining Liara at the table. "Anything I should know about?"

Liara shook her head. "I'll alert you if anything needs your attention, Shepard. I merely needed a break from the data feeds, that's all. I slept a little, but not well."

Val fiddled with her tea bag, watching the water change color. "I was dreaming the Protheans tonight."

"The visions from the beacon?" At Shepard's nod, Liara sighed. "I still have those dreams, too. Perhaps not as vivid as yours, but..."

"I'm sure they're vivid enough." Val was silent. Since she'd first touched the beacon, she'd had a bone-deep need to push against the horror that had befallen the Protheans. _Not us. Not this time. _With an effort, she drew herself away from the thought. "How are you doing?" she asked, noticing again how tired Liara looked.

"I'm well enough." Liara's fingers rattled against the table.

On impulse, Val reached out and covered Liara's hands with hers. "Are you sure? I know you have a lot on your plate, but are you sleeping enough?"

Liara tensed. "Shepard. I can take care of myself. I know my limits." She frowned across the table, and Val realized with a start that she might be treading a little too close to girlfriend-territory.

She pulled her hands back. "Sorry. I didn't mean to overstep. I was just concerned. We're... still friends, at least, I hope."

"I'm the one who should be sorry," Liara said. "I reacted harshly. You're right, I'm not... at my best." She sighed and rubbed at her temples with slim fingers. "I'd like to be friends, Shepard, but I don't think I know how to be a friend to you."

Val frowned and took a sip from her mug. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean it." Liara leaned back in her chair. "I was infatuated with you from the very first, when we met on Therum. And we shared the visions from the beacon so soon after that. We were never simply friends. Not like you were with Tali."

It was true, looking back; even though Liara had been a little shy, there had been a flirtation building between them throughout the mission. Sometimes during late-night chats not unlike this one. "I'm sorry," Val said at last, quietly.

Liara shook her head again. "There's no need. I am not asking for sympathy, or pity. I brought... a great many romantic ideas with me, and told you none of them properly. We had different expectations."

"We did," Val acknowledged. "I'm still sorry. There were a lot of things I don't think I handled well."

Liara leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "Shepard, I... am disappointed, sometimes, that we didn't work out. But at other times, I think it was for the best. I assure you, I am not pining away every day."

That was a bigger relief than she could say, and she smiled. "That's good to know."

Liara went on, "And in the last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to see how you are when Garrus is here, and I... I'm glad you found each other." She knit her fingers together. "The two of you fit together in ways that you and I never did. I knew you were good friends before, but I hadn't expected... well. I know I didn't react well, on Illium, but I do want to see you happy."

"Thank you," said Val. She hesitated, taking another swallow. "The same goes for you, you know. I hope you find happiness."

"It will come," said Liara, with the kind of serene confidence that seemed to come more naturally to her these days, in spite of the war. "I do regret some of the things I said, back on Illium. I know Garrus has been... almost excessively polite."

Shepard choked back a laugh. "I think he's concerned about squad cohesion."

Liara blinked. "How... very typically turian. I must find some time to talk with him. But—" she leaned even further forward, her gaze earnest and intense "—I do hope you and I can begin to be... real friends, now."

"I'd like that," Val told her. "We've been through a lot together, Liara. I... don't have so many friends I can afford to lose them."

Liara smiled, a little wistfully. "Who does?"

They had both seen the visions, though. They knew the likelihood that they would both lose friends before the month was out, but they didn't speak of it further that night.

#

Tea and conversation did the trick, and Val meandered back up to her quarters sometime later feeling considerably more relaxed. She discovered that, in her absence, the blankets seemed to have migrated into one heap in the bed. With a rueful smile, she stripped off her extra clothes and set about trying to reclaim some of the covers.

Garrus's arm snaked around her and pulled her into the middle of the heap, close against him. "Hey," he mumbled, sounding not all there. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, just couldn't sleep and didn't want to wake you."

"You could wake me. I don't mind."

She shrugged. "Figured at least one of us ought to be getting some rest." She nestled against the firm curve of his body, soaking up the warmth. "You're nice and warm."

"It's one of my skills," he agreed. "Anything I can do for you?" His fingers traveled idly up her spine, seeking out knotted bits of muscle.

She sighed. "Mm, that feels good. I didn't ask you up here so you could do things for me, though." She certainly didn't mind it, but that wasn't the point.

He chuckled. "Shepard, it's your bed."

"Our bed," she corrected.

Garrus went very still for a moment. "Oh. I, uh…"

She rolled over enough that she could wrap an arm around him, returning the loose embrace. She was thoroughly warmed up now and starting to feel genuinely sleepy. "I mean, if you don't mind sharing with a biotic who's prone to nightmares."

He rubbed his jaw against her forehead, and she could feel his mouth move when he said, "No. I don't mind."

"Then let's go back to sleep."

* * *

_Author's Note: If you read this chapter before, you might note that the bit at the end is new. I thought I was done with it, but no, the chapter insisted on having a fluffy little epilogue, so there it is_.


	15. Survivors

_This story has spawned a couple of offshoots which didn't quite seem to fit into the alphabet for one reason or another. Here's one, a conversation between Garrus and Tali, circa ME2. It comes after L is for Leadership and K is for Keepsake, and is something of a companion to the two._

* * *

After her second regular work shift on the new _Normandy_, Tali found her way to the main battery. She felt more settled on the ship now, but she hadn't really taken the opportunity to talk to her old friend yet. She hesitated as the doors shut behind her, but Garrus spoke first.

"Tali," he said without turning around from the workstation. "Do you need something?"

She blinked. "How did you know it was me?"

"The filters on your suit make a distinctive buzzing," he said, turning around and gesturing vaguely toward the uninjured side of his head.

"What? They're not supposed to _buzz_!"

"It's a very low frequency. I doubt most non-turians would hear it. Krogan, maybe. But that can't be why you're here. What do you need?"

Tali shrugged. "Just to talk, I guess."

"Ah. Well then..." Garrus looked around, then extended a hand toward the crate of materials against the wall, in the absence of any proper chair. "Be my guest."

"Thanks." Tali sat, as designated, and leaned back against the wall. "You don't get much company in here, I see."

He shrugged. "No, not really. Shepard comes by sometimes."

Tali nodded. "She stops by Engineering, too. Still doing the usual rounds, I guess."

Garrus leaned a hip against the console, shrugging again and folding his arms. "Yeah. Some things never change, I suppose."

Silence fell between them, broken only by the soft humming of the ship's systems.

"It all seems surreal," said Tali at last. "Shepard was dead, then she wasn't, now she's with Cerberus. A few days ago my team were on Haestrom, collecting our data, and then the geth attacked in force and we were on the run, and just when the team is wiped out and I know this time we're going to die, here comes Shepard to save the day..."

"Just like old times." There was an odd note in Garrus's voice. Tali looked at him quizzically.

"Exactly. I mean, how did she even know to be there? No one outside of the Flotilla should have known we were out on Haestrom. I don't like the idea of Cerberus keeping tabs on me." She frowned at the thought, wondering what else Cerberus had been watching. After a moment, she said, "I'm glad to be saved, for sure, but the rest of my team is still gone, except for Kal'Reegar. And suddenly I'm here, and it looks and feels like the _Normandy_, except not quite, and everyone's very polite, but they're still working for terrorists, and... and so am I. Everything that happened on Haestrom feels so far away and unreal that I have to remind myself—" She broke off. "I just can't believe they're all gone."

"I know what you mean," Garrus said, sounding more gravelly than usual.

Tali looked up at him, taking in the half-healed wounds on his face, and the stiff bandages covering the side of his head, and the blasted armor. She wondered why Shepard let him go into the field wearing something that damaged. Her voice was soft when she spoke again. "What happened to you, Garrus? I tried to keep in touch with everyone, but I lost contact with you ages ago." She tried not to sound reproachful; whatever he'd been doing, it had obviously taken its toll.

He sighed, looking down. "It's a long story. The short version is that I was working with a team on Omega, and one of our own betrayed us. I got back to the base and found the rest dead or dying. I got boxed in, so I was trying to take down as many of them as I could. And then along came Shepard. To save the day, just like you said." He paused. "I thought I was hallucinating at first, or maybe it was some kind of trick. But no, it was really her. So I thought, maybe I'll survive this day after all. Then they attacked with a damned gunship, and I woke up in the medbay here. Like you said, surreal. I almost would have thought the whole thing hadn't happened, except for this." He pointed toward the bandage and the scars.

Tali winced. "Are you all right? I mean... it just looks pretty bad."

He shrugged. "It's fine. Dr. Chakwas knows her stuff. I've pretty much settled in here. But, are you all right?"

"I wasn't injured on Haestrom," she said. "The marine team took the brunt of it." She blinked away the tears; she hated getting her faceplate fogged up with the excess moisture.

"That's not what I meant," said Garrus. "You lost a lot of people. I know that's not easy." His tone was very gentle.

Tali couldn't help being a little surprised at that gentleness, even as it made her sniffle out loud. She'd thought of Garrus as a friend, but she was used to having him tease and prod at her. This depth of kindness, she hadn't really seen before, not like this. "I... I still have to write to all their families. I was head of the science mission, so it's my responsibility. I don't... know what to say. I don't know if the research was worth it. I probably shouldn't say that, in the letters."

"Probably not," he agreed.

"Shepard says it wasn't my fault, but I can't help feeling responsible."

"Shepard says that a lot." There was an edge to his voice that made her look up again, but he was staring fixedly into space, his left mandible flexing slowly. He shook his head and looked back at her. "If you'd like, I'll read the letters for you. I don't know quarian customs, but... well. I've written and seen this kind of thing before."

"Thanks. I asked Shepard what she thought, too, but I know she doesn't have much time. I just keep starting them over and over. I don't know if I'm saying too much, or not enough."

"It's good if you can say something specific about the person," he offered.

"I can do that. I remember everyone. Some of the techs I selected myself." She sighed. "I'm going to miss the ceremonies, back at the Flotilla."

"I'll tell you what," said Garrus. "The next time we have some shore leave, let's go for a drink, and you can tell me all about them."

Tali smiled. "I'd like that," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "You can tell me about the ones you lost, too."

Garrus froze for a moment before nodding. "All right. We should... probably not do this on Omega, then. There's still a bounty on me there. Maybe on Illium. I think we're headed there next."

"A bounty?" Tali cocked her head and looked at him skeptically. "Okay, you're also going to need to tell me the long version of that story."

He laughed a little. "It's a deal. Is there anything else on your mind?"

Tali sighed, and couldn't help fidgeting, twisting her hands together. "When I talk to Shepard, it _seems_ like her, but I still can't help worrying it's... some kind of a... Cerberus trick, like maybe she's an impostor or a... a clone, or something."

Garrus shook his head firmly. "Definitely not. It's Shepard."

Tali tried to take comfort in that decisiveness. "It just seems so impossible."

"I know what you mean, but I'm certain. She's the same. Well, mostly the same. In all the ways that matter. She moves like Shepard, she fights like Shepard. Barring a few Cerberus enhancements. Watch out for that new biotic charge thing." He shuddered. "She knows what Shepard should know. She even smells like Shepard, and an impostor definitely wouldn't."

"Smells like Shepard? How can you possibly..."

"Predator," said Garrus, pointing to himself, and then bared his teeth and brandished his claws in her direction. The effect might have been more threatening if he weren't still wearing gloves. Tali burst out laughing. "Omnivores," he grumbled. "No proper respect. Anyway, she still leads the same way. Watch, and you'll see her try to make us into one team. She's got the same moral sense, and she will still work you over to get you to see her point of view."

Tali frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Sorry." He rolled his shoulders. "Maybe you've never had a significant disagreement with her. If you ever do, you'll see what I mean."

"I didn't know _you_ did. Are you having some kind of problem...?"

"No," he said shortly. "It's fine."

Tali decided to leave well enough alone for the moment. "Okay, but why did you say she was mostly the same?"

He looked absent-mindedly toward the door, for long enough that Tali fidgeted. She was about to prompt him to answer when he finally spoke. "She... treats me differently. I don't know how to describe it. Maybe it's just not having to live by Alliance regs. I don't know."

"She said she had fewer people to rely on," said Tali tentatively. "She's already given me more responsibility, as chief engineer."

He nodded. "That's part of it, sure. My responsibilities aren't as well-defined. Weapons officer and operational second, I suppose you could say. She joked about making me XO, but I have no interest in that much paperwork. No, there's something else, I just don't know what it is. I can't tell if she's different, or I'm different, or it's just the situation that's different."

"What is she doing, that's so different?"

"I don't _know_. It's not that it's _so_ different..."

Tali waited, watching him try to figure out what to say with some amusement. Garrus was seldom this much at a loss for words.

"She always seems to be watching me," he said, finally. "And I can't tell what she's watching for. After what happened on Omega, it seemed like she was... hovering around a lot more than usual. Like she thought I was going to explode, or something. And she apologized, the other night, for taking over when I'd asked her to help me with something. I can't imagine her ever apologizing for something like that before. It's all little stuff, I just don't remember her being like this before."

"Huh," said Tali. "Well, this isn't a military ship, and we're only her subordinates because we choose to be. Maybe that's what makes things different."

"Yeah," Garrus said, but he didn't sound convinced. "Like I said, I don't know. I keep feeling like she's watching me for something, but I can't quite figure out what it is." He shrugged. "Doesn't really matter, I guess. Do you want to get some dinner?"

"Sure." Tali hopped up from the crate. "Not that I'm having much beyond nutrient paste, but I'll keep you company."

They left the battery and headed down the corridor to the mess hall. Half of the tables were already occupied. Shepard was sitting at one, just starting on her meal. She looked up as they came down the corridor, and her face lit up with a smile as she saw them. Garrus waved in her direction, and she waved back.

Tali looked from one to the other, and her eyes narrowed with a sudden suspicion about what Shepard might be watching their turian friend for. _Well_, she thought to herself, _this should be interesting._


	16. A Proposal

_And here's the other offshoot, as of now. Takes place in ME3, starting immediately after Garrus's date / shooting contest. A return to your regularly scheduled alphabet will follow._

* * *

Mussed and sweaty, sprawled in the back of a skycar, Val Shepard closed her eyes and sighed in contentment. It wasn't exactly that she'd forgotten what it was like to be happy… but there had been precious little time to just breathe, or be. To do something for the fun of it, simply because she _could_. There was, no doubt, a stack of reports and messages and other duties piling up back on her terminal, but for a time the weight of the war, of the death and destruction tearing her galaxy apart, seemed a little less.

It was with those thoughts jostling in her mind that she opened her eyes and said, "Hey, was that a proposal?"

"Hm?" Garrus had his head resting on her shoulder and seemed disinclined to move.

"One-turian woman, you said. What did you mean by that?"

"Oh." He lifted his head enough to look her in the eyes, his expression becoming slightly anxious. "I'm not trying to pressure you into anything—"

She interrupted before he could back too far away from the happiest moment she'd had in ages. "Because I'm saying yes, no matter what. I'm only asking what I'm saying yes to."

"No matter what?" His browplates shifted up. "So I could convince you that you just agreed to anything?"

She shoved at his shoulder with a grin. "Don't push your luck, Vakarian. And I repeat: was that a proposal? Of marriage?" Her heart was racing all over again, and she found herself holding her breath.

He looked at her intently. "Do you want it to be?"

She let out a breath. The last year—the last two years, as far as she could remember—had been a jumbled, chaotic whirlwind. The Spectre appointment, the chase after Saren, the awful truth about what lay _behind_ Saren, the Collector mission, Aratoht, six months under arrest, and then a full-on galactic war for survival. In all that mess, this friendship—this _love_—was the steady guiding star she'd come to rely on. She could imagine going on without this partnership, just barely, but that would be a future in which she'd have to put herself back together into something other than what she was now. When she'd left Earth, she'd tried to bury her fears for him—for _them_—in the urgency of her duty and her mission. The grim realization that the Hierarchy was in no better a state than the Alliance had been tempered by the sheer giddy relief of finding him alive and unharmed on Menae. A guilty thought, but a true one. They lived their lives on a precipice, both of them, and she wanted desperately to seize what moments they could for themselves. "Yeah. I do."

Garrus gave her one of the sly grins, a lopsided mandible flare. "In that case, yes, it was." He rubbed his cheek against hers, and she turned her head to kiss him. "How do you want to do this?"

Logistics, the base of any officer's existence. "Oh, God. Well, a traditional human wedding can be a giant production, but I don't really care about all that stuff." She tried to imagine herself parading anywhere in a fancy white dress and shied away from the image."I don't have any family to care one way or the other, so... as long as it's you and me and our friends, I'll be happy." There were too many friends who couldn't be there: Ashley and Mordin and Thane already gone, Anderson fighting for his life on Earth, Tali somewhere at the ends of the galaxy. She cleared her throat. "What do turians usually do?"

Garrus shrugged. "We're fairly straightforward, really. It's a little old-fashioned to do the traditional formal ceremonies. I can hardly imagine anyone doing them in the middle of a war. I think it's just a matter of making what promises you like, in front of witnesses, and registering as a joined pair."

"Can we do this soon?" she asked, the words coming out in a rush.

Garrus propped himself up on one elbow. "How soon?"

"As soon as possible? Unless you'd rather wait until your dad and sister can be there," she added.

"No, that's... not necessary." He fell silent for a moment, eyes going distant, and she was afraid she'd hit a nerve, but he said, "I'd... yeah, I'd like to do it soon."

As it turned out, a wedding on the Citadel was simple to arrange. You filed some paperwork, just like getting a marriage license back in the United North American States, and two days later you could have the ceremony, legally binding throughout Citadel space.

The harried-looking salarian taking down their information apologized that their VI wasn't back online since the coup yet. "What type of ceremony?" he asked. "Civil or religious? We can manage siari, Confucian, turian spiritualist, Buddhist, Christian—"

"Civil," said Shepard firmly, before he could rattle off all the human religions they had on file.

"Right." He made a note. "Hierarchy standard? Earth Euro-Christian derived? Blended?"

She and Garrus looked at each other, and Shepard said, "Um, blended, I guess? Do we have to decide right now?"

"Not at all." He passed a datapad over the counter. "Here are all the scripts we have available, you can customize as you see fit. Do you require the services of an officiant?"

"That shouldn't be necessary," said Garrus.

"What do you have in mind?" Shepard asked as they left. "Human weddings usually do have some kind of officiant. It doesn't have to be a religious figure, it could just be a judge."

"Turians just usually make vows in the presence of witnesses, so long as at least one witness is of equivalent or higher rank," he said. "Fortunately, Victus hasn't left the station yet. I'd, ah, rather have the witness be someone I know, and the options are somewhat limited."

She nudged him with her elbow. "One of these days, you're going to have to actually explain your rank to me."

"Mmm," he said. "Don't humans exchange some kind of token? Do you want that?"

Fine. If that was how he wanted to play it, she'd let him deflect. She could have asked Victus at any time; trying to work it out _without_ asking had become kind of a game at this point. "Rings, usually. Not sure I want to try to wear one under my gauntlets. I'm fine with not having them, or maybe we could get some later... Do turians even wear rings?"

"Not typically." He gave her a sideways look. "Fifty credits says Liara knows about this before we get back to the Normandy. Do you, uh, think she's going to be upset?"

Shepard bit her lip. She thought she'd cleared the air with Liara a little while back, but she wasn't entirely sure how Liara would react to this development. "I hope not."

Liara met them as they reached the _Normandy_, wearing an expression that made Shepard simultaneously glad she hadn't taken the bet, and anxious that a confrontation was at hand. But Liara said, "My VI spotted the filing, so I took the liberty of reserving a room. Or... or several, actually, of different sizes, I didn't know how many guests to expect..." She looked flustered, Shepard realized, her cheeks tinged with lavender, and suddenly she reminded Shepard powerfully of the shy archaeologist she'd met, once upon a time, back on Therum.

"Thank you," she said. "Small. We were thinking small." She glanced at Garrus and got his nod of confirmation. "In two days. We need to take on supplies anyway, so it won't delay our departure."

Liara nodded. "I know. I can try to keep this from the press until it happens, though you might want to speak to Allers. If you need any special arrangements, I should be able to set something up."

Shepard felt thrown off. "Liara. You're not... are you okay with this?"

Liara blinked at her. "Of course. I told you—no hard feelings. I'm happy for you." She looked from one to the other earnestly. "Both of you. Really."

In the end, there were just a handful of guests: Liara and Dr. Chakwas, Joker and EDI, James and Steve and Samantha rounding out the crew. Kaidan had pleaded another appointment, and Shepard didn't push for details; it was only a short time since he'd confessed feelings for her, after all, and she could understand his wanting to keep his distance. Victus was Garrus's turian witness, and Wrex hadn't left the Citadel yet either. Shepard had enlisted Allers in keeping the rest of the press at bay by promising her an exclusive interview on the subject later. She'd also asked EDI and Liara to send out a message to other former crew, but most were unavailable. A few messages of congratulations had trickled in, and Jack, to Shepard's surprise, showed up at the last minute, surprising Shepard even more by wearing an actual shirt that covered most of her skin.

"Jack," Shepard said, "I didn't expect you to—"

"Didn't expect me to want to watch you two sappy losers tie the knot?" Jack replied with a sneer, but it lacked any real bite. "Yeah, well, it beats reading those fucking reports."

Shepard was wearing her dress blues. She'd managed to persuade Garrus not to wear his armor, and he was actually wearing a turian-styled suit, black and blue and silver, and quite likely brand new, since she'd never seen it before. She tried to count up all the times she'd seen him in civvies. It was a pathetically small number. This was definitely the most flattering outfit she'd ever seen him wear.

Actually getting married was almost ludicrously easy. They could have made practically any promise to each other that they wanted; they had decided to keep it simple, picking elements that were close from both human and turian traditions. And yet Shepard had to fight a bit to keep her voice steady when she promised to _respect_ and _love_ and _be a partnerfor the rest of my days_. And Garrus _didn't_; in spite of all the awkwardness and stammering he was prone to fall into when they talked about _this_, now he didn't falter at all, and his gaze was locked on her with the kind of intensity and focus that made her insides flutter.

They made their vows, and she reached out to take his hands in hers—both of them gloved, today, because gloves went with the most formal version of her uniform, and were standard for turians in mixed-species company, though she had a moment of swift resentment of the layers of cloth between them. She reached up for a human-style kiss on the mouth, light and fleeting, not part of any turian tradition, but the one human wedding custom she couldn't quite do without. After that was just the paperwork: signatures and DNA printing and officially registering the partnership, which meant that more than one of them saw her full first name, but she wasn't going to worry about that right now.

"And there you are," said Victus, making the last of the witness signatures on the last page of the registration. "Congratulations to you both, and may I say, Commander, I hope I'll have the opportunity to welcome you to Palaven properly one day."

They weren't dwelling on the war that day, but they couldn't entirely dismiss it, either. "I'll drink to that," she agreed.

Liara had reserved a private room in the back of a rather pricey club for drinks after. Shepard nearly choked on hers when Wrex clapped her on the shoulder. "Well, Shepard," he rumbled at her, "you could have done worse."

"Thanks, Wrex," she said once she'd finished coughing. "I appreciate the vote of confidence."

"If you had to go turian, I mean," he added, sending a particularly toothy grin Garrus's way.

The rest of the evening was gentle chatter, most of them trying to avoid overly heavy topics. Shepard was a little relieved that Steve and Samantha took it on themselves to field most of EDI's questions about "organic social rituals," sparing her the necessity.

"So, yeah, congratulations," Joker told her, drink in hand. "Is it crass if I say I saw this coming? 'Cause I saw this coming."

She arched an eyebrow. "Really? You some kind of prophet? Because I wasn't thinking about this until about two days ago."

He gave her a crooked grin. "Oh, I noticed some things way back. Before… you know." He took a drink.

"Nice try," she said. "I'm going to need some documentation on that one, especially from the guy who keeps telling me he's not a 'people person.'"

"Anyway," he said, still grinning, "best wishes."

"Thanks." She added, quietly, "for being here, and for everything."

Gradually, the group dispersed; Victus got called away on business; Liara took a call to her omni-tool and slipped out; Jack talked James into going out to the nearest club with a dance floor; Wrex took his leave and went out, possibly in search of trouble; the rest of the younger humans, plus EDI, departed shortly after. Dr. Chakwas gave both of them hugs, in spite of Garrus's look of embarrassment. "I am very happy for both of you. It's a rare thing you have found, in a difficult time. Hold on to it, and be good to each other." She cleared her throat and pressed a card into Shepard's hand. "I am also deputized to tell you not to report to the _Normandy_ until an hour before our departure tomorrow. Consider it a gift from the crew. Major Alenko says he has the ship until then. Don't worry about a thing." She left a kiss on Shepard's cheek, winked, and departed.

Blinking, Shepard turned the card over in her hands. It was a keycard bearing the name of one of the Presidium's posher hotels. "Well. I wasn't expecting that." She shot Garrus a smile. "Do turians do honeymoons?"

"I think every species grasps the basic concept," he said dryly.

For once they walked through the Citadel hand in hand, with no responsibilities at stake. In spite of the recent coup, the hotel was a gleaming, beautifully kept oasis, and someone—Traynor?—had already delivered a bag with a change of clothes and toiletries.

Once the door had closed behind them, Garrus slid his arms around her from behind. "So," he said, voice low in her ear, "feel any different?"

She closed her eyes and leaned back against him, thinking about it. Was it different, crossing the line from _together_ to _officially married_? "Yes. No. I don't know." She felt exhilarated, but she wasn't sure if anything had really _changed_.

Garrus laughed, joking, "Now there's a decisive answer, Commander."

Smiling, she reached up, stroking one hand along the side of his neck. "Oh, do you have a better one?"

"It doesn't need to change anything," he said, rubbing the side of his face along hers. Nuzzling, she'd call it, if he didn't look affronted by the word.

"No," she agreed.

"But it does, all the same. Oh, damn it," he added, in a different tone.

"What?" she asked, mildly alarmed.

"I screwed up. Joker said I was supposed to carry you in here, and I forgot."

Shepard laughed. "I think that's only if it's a place we own, not just a random hotel room."

"Oh? Hm. I'll have to keep that in mind."

Shepard turned around so she could look him in the eye and return the embrace. "How about we check out this suite we have here, Mr. Shepard?"

"I definitely did not change my name," Garrus said. "But I think that's a very good idea, Commander Vakarian."

"Didn't change mine, either," she pointed out, and drew him down into a long kiss.

#

"You _bosh'tets_, both of you!" Tali cried as soon as they'd left the other quarian admirals behind in the War Room.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "We got here as soon as we could?"

"Not that! The two of you went and got married without me!"

"Oh, that," said Garrus.

"'Oh, that,'" Tali mimicked. She planted her hands on her hips and glared from one to the other. "You inconsiderate—oh, I don't even have the _words_! I would have wanted to _be_ there!"

Shepard rubbed the back of her neck. "Sorry, Tali. We just—weren't sure when we'd see you again, and we didn't want to wait."

"I know," she said, with a sniff. "I get it. I just—" Despite being half a head shorter than Shepard, Tali lunged and somehow got one arm around each of them in a surprisingly vise-like hug. "Don't do that ever again."

Garrus shot Shepard a puzzled look over Tali's helmeted head. "I don't think the occasion is going to come up again, Tali, it's kind of a one-time deal."

"Oh, you be quiet with your turian logic," she said, her speech output muffled against Shepard's shoulder. "I do still have a shotgun, you know." A moment later, she let go and stepped back. "I just had to say that."

Shepard grinned. "Love you, too, Tali."

"Hmph," she said. "You could do a better job of showing it. All right, I suppose we should talk about the geth."


	17. O is for Oldest

_And back to the alphabet. Early years this time._

* * *

Val Shepard gritted her teeth as her mother braided her hair.

She didn't like her hair. Her hair was so long that it _had_ to be braided to stay out of her face, and then it hurt when Mama combed the tangles out, and she braided it so tight that it pulled against her scalp. But they'd made a compromise, Dad called it; she kept her hair long, the way Mama liked, and so Mama called her _Val_ instead of her whole first name, which Val didn't like, either.

"There," said Mama, snapping the elastic into place on the last braid, and tying bows of red ribbon on the ends. "And in plenty of time to get to school. You're the oldest, so you look after your brothers, do you hear?"

"Yes, Mama."

Mama bustled around then getting the boys ready. At eleven, Val could get ready by herself. She put on her own shoes and jacket and packed up her lunch and her datapads while Mama was calling, "Sasha, do you have your book bag? Misha, don't forget your lunch!" She was waiting by the door when Mama finished rounding up her brothers. "Be good," she told them, giving each a kiss on the forehead. Val accepted it patiently. Alexander, the oldest of her brothers at seven, screwed up his face in a grimace. Five-year-old Mikhail looked like he wasn't sure what to make of it all. Baby Ivan started crying, and Mama went rushing off to get him. Val took the opportunity to scoot the three of them out the door.

"Come on," she said, checking the time on her omni-tool. It was nearly new, a present for her last birthday a few months earlier, and having a real one made her feel very grown-up. "We have to walk fast to get to school in time. Misha, stay with us. Hold Sasha's hand so you don't get lost." He'd been going to Mrs. Mendoza's pre-school classes for little kids, but this was his first day at the _real_ school.

"_Alex_," her brother insisted, scowling. "Mama says Sasha, but it's Alex at school. You know that, _Valentina_."

Val scowled back. "Fine. _Alex. _Get moving."

The morning sun already held the promise of a warm afternoon as they walked along the path, the fields on either side of them burgeoning with wheat and corn, genetically engineered to adapt to Mindoir's soil. Val walked a little behind the boys so she could keep an eye on them and keep them from dawdling. She pulled the red bows out of her hair along the way and stuffed the ribbons in her pocket. When they were halfway to school, Mikhail ventured, "How come you're Alex at school?"

"I like it better. It's not so..." Alex trailed off, searching for words.

"It's not so _Mama_," Val finished. She loved her mother, she did, but Mama liked having things her way, and Dad was so easygoing that he let her, most of the time. The first time Val had insisted she wanted to be called that instead of Valentina, even at home, Mama had cried and shouted. Val had cried and shouted, too, until she'd been sent to her room. After that, she'd heard Mama talking to Dad for a while, loud and angry, until she finally wound down, and Dad had said something, quietly and firmly. When Val came out the next morning, she'd been Val, and eventually Mama had stopped looking pained whenever she cut herself off from saying the longer version.

"I was gonna say, not so Russian," said Alex.

"There's nothing wrong with being Russian," Val said. Which was true, but there weren't any other Russian people on Mindoir, so it was a little weird that Mama insisted on being _so_ Russian. Alex sniffed, and she wasn't sure whether that meant he agreed or disagreed.

"Can I be something different at school, too?" Mikhail asked.

"Course you can," Alex replied.

"Just tell the teacher what you want to be called," Val added.

By the time they'd gotten to school, he'd decided to be called Mike_. _They split up at the door; Alex headed off to his classroom while Val walked Misha—_Mike_, she corrected herself—to the classroom for the youngest students before going to her own class. She went through the motions most of the morning—they were mostly doing review, anyway—trying not to worry. Alex would be fine, he got better grades than she did, usually, and had his set of friends, but everything was new for Mikhail. What if the other little kids teased him about the accent he'd picked up from Mama? What if some of the bigger kids decided to pick on him? What if he didn't pay attention and missed his teacher's instructions? He wasn't very good at paying attention at home, sometimes.

Recess times were staggered, which meant that by the time Val's class was let outside, the littlest kids were nearly done. She was already scanning the playground for signs of her brothers when Alex came rushing over to her. "Val," he gasped. "The twins—"

"Where?" she snapped, clenching her fists. This was exactly the sort of thing she'd been afraid of.

Alex pointed, and she took off, running at full tilt. She had a dim awareness of Alex pounding along behind her and a couple of her friends heading over to join her, but her focus was on reaching the corner of the playground where there was a drop-off.

The Macmillan twins liked to corner younger kids, especially if they were new, split them off from the others and pretend like they were best friends, all while preventing the littler kid from getting away. The teachers hadn't caught on to it yet, 'cause Tyler Macmillan was smart enough to talk his way out of it if they asked. And yeah, it was Mikhail that they currently had trapped between themselves and the edge of the plateau. As she came pelting toward them, he saw her and tried to get around the twins, and one of them pushed him down. Val's fists clenched. She came to a stop and gave them one warning. "Stop it. Leave him alone."

Tim Macmillan was not nearly as smart as his brother. He sneered at her and prodded Mikhail with the toe of his boot. "Or what?"

Val didn't bother with a threat. She just hauled off and punched him right in his stupid grinning mouth. Tim staggered back a step, shock in his eyes, before he came after her. After that things were blurred—the twins were almost ten and big for their age, but she was faster and madder. She got in her hits where she could and dodged theirs, trying to keep both of them in front of her—it was kind of like roughhousing with her friends, except then no one was trying to hurt anyone else. There was shouting around her, but her focus narrowed to the twins. Tim lunged toward her, and something hit the side of her face, so she yelped. She yelped harder as something tugged on one of her braids, whirled blindly toward the pull, and pounded her knee into something soft.

There was a sudden silence, and when Val wiped the sweat out of her eyes, she realized that everyone around her had stopped, and in front of her was Mr. Salazar, doubled over. A teacher—she'd hit one of the teachers—

She spent the next hour in the principal's office, clutching an ice pack to her throbbing cheek at intervals. Her hopes that they'd reach Dad first died when the doors opened and her mother walked in, her pale eyes blazing. Val shrunk into her seat.

"I cannot believe you," Mama said as she drove Val home. "Making such a scene. I had to leave Ivan with the neighbors next door. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I was only trying to—"

Mama interrupted, of course. "Beating up younger boys. Such behavior! I should never have let you run wild like you do."

"They were picking on Misha! They always pick on the little ones! I was just—"

"I don't want to hear your excuses!" Mama shouted. She pulled into the driveway, turned off the car, and slammed her hand against the steering wheel. Val flinched. "It was not excusable! You do not beat up younger children and you most certainly do not hit _teachers_!"

"I didn't see him!"

"You should have asked for help instead of rushing in! Why must you—"

"You told me to look after the boys!" she cried, fighting back tears.

Mama went silent. When Val dared a look at her, her mouth was tight and her cheeks were very red. She spoke in clipped tones. "Go to your room. You are suspended from school for a week. Your father and I will discuss if there is further punishment."

"Yes, Mama," she whispered, and slunk inside.

In her room, Val threw herself on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. "It's not fair," she whispered. "I had to stop them." The Macmillan twins got away with stuff all the time because they were mean and sneaky and they lied a lot. "Someone had to do _something_," she muttered.

It didn't help. Jay Escobar and her other friends had stared at her while they were marching her into the office. _Everyone_ had been staring and whispering. She might have just made things worse for both of the boys. She wrapped her arms around herself and rolled onto her side. Her thoughts ran in circles, and her swollen lip throbbed.

A while later, her door opened and closed quietly, and somebody nudged her side. "Val," whispered Misha.

She rolled over. "Hey. You okay, M- Mike?"

She was glad she'd corrected herself when he gave her a huge smile and snuggled up next to her. "Yeah. The mean boys got s- sus-"

"Suspended?" she asked, with a flicker hope.

"Yeah. That. They got that too."

"Good." She curled her arm around her brother. "Is Mama still mad?"

"Yes. But you're my _favorite_ sister."

She managed to chuckle. "I'm your only sister, short stuff."

"Best big sister ever," he said seriously, hugging her back. Val smiled in spite of her sore mouth. At least someone thought she'd done right.

They lay quietly together until the light dimmed and Alex came to call them for dinner.


	18. P is for Proteges

Shepard strode into the _Normandy_'s cramped cargo hold with an agenda. She exchanged a nod with Wrex on her left and headed for the gunnery station. "Morning, Chief," she said in greeting.

Ashley immediately turned and straightened. "Commander."

They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, Shepard approved Ashley's request to requisition some additional equipment, and then she got down to it. "Listen, Ash, I know how you feel about the non-human crew…"

The younger woman stiffened slightly. "Do you have any concerns about my conduct, Commander?" she asked in clipped tones. Shepard blinked. She was relatively informal with her crew, but interrupting was pushing things. "Because you made yourself clear the last time—"

"Chief," Shepard said firmly. Ash flushed and drew to attention.

"Sorry, ma'am."

"At ease. That wasn't a prelude to a dressing-down. I was going to suggest that while we have a non-human crew, you take advantage of it. The turian military does things a little differently than we do; Wrex has been knocking around the galaxy busting heads longer than the rest of the crew put together. You learn something from them, you're better prepared the next time you go up against an enemy, especially a krogan or a turian."

Ash's tight expression smoothed out, turned thoughtful. "I see your point, Commander."

"Good." She'd already told Wrex that if he was going to eat ship's rations, he could make himself available to the rest of the ground team for training. It would be no trouble to persuade Garrus to do the same. "Work with Tali and Liara a little on hand-to-hand, too. There, they need to learn from you."

Ashley gave her a sharp nod. "Will do, ma'am."

#

It wasn't every day you got to resolve a hostage crisis. Afterward, Shepard found Kaidan in the mess hall, hunched over a plate of high-calorie rations. Taking the seat opposite, she asked quietly, "Are you doing all right?"

He swallowed, not looking up from his plate. "Fine, ma'am."

Shepard thought that one over. If he really wanted to keep things private, she didn't want to pry, but the situation had left a bad taste in her mouth, and she had to imagine it was worse for him. "It was a tough situation on the _Ontario_," she ventured. "I appreciated your support in there."

Kaidan grimaced, sitting back in his chair. "A lot of L2s are bitter, and resentful of L3s. I get where they're coming from. I mean, I follow the Transhuman Studies issue. Obviously." He made a face, and Shepard sympathized; the word "transhuman" had always rubbed her the wrong way. "But taking hostages isn't the way. It only makes us look worse."

Shepard nodded. After a while, she said, "I can't help but wonder sometimes what would have happened if I'd developed biotics a little earlier."

"I wonder, too," he said, absently rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, I got lucky, you know? Migraines, but not psychosis. It could have been worse. It's interesting to work with other biotics. I think I've learned a lot from Wrex and Liara. And you, of course, Commander."

"I agree. You've progressed a lot since the start of the mission," she said. It always felt odd to be in this position; he was slightly older and had used biotics longer, but regardless, it was her job to evaluate his performance, and she believed in praising people when they'd earned it.

"Yeah," Kaidan said. "The stakes are too high. I don't want to slip up by holding back." He shook his head. "Our training protocols need to change. I think human biotics would do a lot better to work in teams, like we are now."

"If you have any ideas, write them up, and I'll pass them up the chain," Shepard said.

Kaidan blinked, looking startled. "Thanks, Shepard."

#

"Keelah," said Tali. "I am so sorry."

Shepard regarded the mess of smoking geth parts around them and took a deep breath. "Okay, Tali, let's discuss the most effective use of that shotgun you're carrying."

Behind Tali, Garrus made a snorting noise and opened his mouth. Shepard shot him a warning look. She really didn't think the young quarian was in the mood for his usual needling. To her relief, the turian shut his mouth and turned away, scanning the horizon through his scope, his own silent signal that he'd keep watch while she gave Tali an impromptu lesson in appropriate shotgun tactics.

#

Flux had gotten a little raucous, with the entire _Normandy_ crew drinking free. Shepard could have been three sheets to the wind by now, but she'd been nursing her drinks conservatively, preferring to keep her head clear.

This time, while making the rounds of the room, she took a seat next to Garrus. "So. Headed back to C-Sec, you said?"

He glanced at her with one of those odd flicking grins. "Yeah. There's a lot of work to be done and not enough people to do it."

Shepard slouched in her seat. She didn't like imagining the ship without him. The two of them had worked remarkably well together, and somehow that had turned into the kind of friendship she didn't often have. "We'll miss you, but you can do some good there."

His mandibles spread wider. "Oh, I know it."

She grinned and chucked him on the shoulder; Garrus made an exaggerated wince. "Don't get too full of yourself, there, Vakarian."

"Would I do that?" His expression sobered. "I do hate to break up the crew, Shepard, but…"

"It's inevitable," she said, turning her eyes to the dance floor. It _was_ inevitable, but she didn't have to like it, and one more reason she wasn't drinking too much tonight was that she didn't want to be a sad drunk. Garrus and Wrex would be leaving, a good portion of the Alliance crew were being reassigned. She thought Kaidan and Pressly and Adams were staying on, but she wasn't sure about Tali or Liara's plans yet. If anyone wanted Joker reassigned they'd have to pry his cold dead hands off the controls, because Shepard wasn't going to be the one to do it. "The mission's done. I knew the team would be splitting up. I don't want to hold anyone back, anyway. It's all about building you up so you go on to better things." She stopped abruptly, embarrassed by the sentiment she'd let slip out.

Garrus nodded as though she'd said something profound instead of cheesy, though. "I'll keep that in mind, when I have my own crew."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Your own crew?"

"I'm re-applying for Spectre training, too," he said, nonchalant.

"Excellent!" Her face split into a grin and she clinked her glass against his. "Once you're a Spectre, we can team up again." She felt her face heat up for a moment; maybe she shouldn't assume that he'd want to work together again. She didn't seem to have great control of her mouth, though. Maybe the alcohol was hitting her harder than she'd thought.

But Garrus grinned back. "I'll look forward to it, Commander."

#

"Jack. We need to talk."

"Not really in the mood for one of your little chats, Shepard."

"I'm serious. We need to talk about the mission."

Jack rolled her eyes and yanked herself off the crate she'd been crouched on, pacing in the confines of the cargo space, all restless energy. "What the fuck do you want from me, Shepard? I fight for you. That was the deal."

"Yeah, that's the deal. And last mission, you got fixated on going after that krogan, and left the rest of the squad hanging out to dry."

The younger woman's mouth twisted into a snarl. "Fuck off, Shepard. I watch my own ass, the rest of you need to watch yours."

Shepard suppressed the urge to heave a sigh. She got it. She did. Everything in Jack's experience told her that she was going to be used and then tossed aside, and the only way Shepard could win her trust was by _being trustworthy_. That didn't change the fact that Shepard needed Jack to fight as part of a team. "On this mission, we need to be able to rely on each other. The rest of the team will cover your six, Jack, but we need you to cover ours and not let us get cut off from each other. If you can't do that, you're going to be cooling your heels here on the ship."

"You're such a fucking Girl Scout," Jack muttered, flopping down on her bunk. "Fine. Now get out of here, I want to take a nap."

"I'm going." Shepard could never entirely be sure whether she'd gotten through to Jack in any given conversation. But the next time Jack came along for a mission, she did as Shepard asked.

#

One of the great things about Grunt, Shepard had decided, was that you could ask him to push your line forward, and he'd do it, never stopping, enjoying every minute of the carnage, and he was so close to indestructible that he'd come out fine in the end.

The other great thing about Grunt was that he was a hell of a lot smarter than he looked. Maybe it was something about the tank imprints, but he learned from observation and example faster than just about any trainee Shepard could recall. It had only taken him one or two missions to learn how to keep track of the entire field, so that nothing could get past him to flank the rearmost member of their team. He took a certain kroganish enjoyment in taunting Garrus or Mordin or a few other teammates out of combat, but on the ground he'd become as reliable as any other squad member.

He didn't like talking over missions afterward, still grumbling that humans talked too much, so Shepard locked eyes with him and nodded her approval as they boarded the shuttle. He responded with a grin and a nod of his own, rumbling, "Battlemaster."

#

Shepard caught James on his way through the mess. "Vega. I've got something for you."

"Oh, yeah?" He grinned. "Maybe I got something for you, too, Lola."

She rolled her eyes. "Save it. Here you go."

He took the folded-up piece of paper she offered with a dubious expression, unfolding it to see that she'd scrawled "N1" on it with a black marker. "What's this?"

"It is my official opinion as your superior and an N7 operative that you have passed the qualifications for N1. I reported up the chain, but who knows when you'll get any other notification, so there you go."

"Uh." It wasn't too often Shepard caught James at such a loss, so she enjoyed the sight of the big marine stammering. "I don't know what to say..."

She slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't get too excited. You can't wear it on your uniform, and it just means a shitload more work to make N2. Fortunately for you, we have a shitload more Reapers to fight."

* * *

_These chapters keep getting longer. Once I hit on the theme for this chapter, a whole bunch of characters wanted a turn._


	19. Q is for Questions

"Spectre Kryik."

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard." The turian Spectre turned toward her, his mandibles parting to reveal a mouthful of pointed teeth, in an approximation of a human grin. "'Nihlus' will be sufficient. I don't stand on ceremony."

Val looked at him curiously, wondering if the expression was a natural one for turians, or a deliberate imitation of the human gesture. She hadn't had much opportunity to work closely with members of the species before. She knew a lot of stories; there was a whole generation of Alliance officers ahead of her who'd come of age during the First Contact War. Cooperative contact with turians was another thing entirely. She'd already seen Pressly eyeing the turian Spectre with suspicion, and she'd come to know Anderson well enough to recognize when he was being more guarded than usual, too.

Shepard might have been trained by that generation of veterans, but she could keep an open mind. The word from the brass now was all cooperation and communication; the _Normandy_ was a testament to that. If the Systems Alliance wanted to be taken seriously in the galaxy at large, humans needed to get over old prejudices, and Kryik had been perfectly pleasant to Shepard thus far. "Nihlus, then. Do you have a moment to talk before we reach Eden Prime?"

"Certainly."

By mutual accord, they headed for the comm room, where they'd so recently seen the distress signal from the colony. There weren't a lot of places to have a private conversation on the _Normandy._ Shepard noticed many of the crew giving the pair of them covert glances as they passed. Everyone was on edge; the fact that Eden Prime was in distress was out among the crew, although most of the details were known only to her, Anderson, and Kryik. She had just enough time for a short conversation with the turian; then she needed to brief Alenko and Jenkins, who were currently suiting up, and then they'd be hitting orbit.

"After you," said Nihlus as they reached the door.

She shook her head and extended a hand. "Not at all, you're a guest on our ship. After you."

He hesitated for a moment before flashing her another grin and entering the room, as bidden. "I shouldn't, you know," he said once she'd followed him. "Spectre Rule #1: Don't turn your back. Except, perhaps, on a close friend. But your record suggests you're not the backstabbing type."

Shepard raised her eyebrows. "I'd rather deal with an opponent head-on, if that's what you mean."

"Exactly." His mandibles flared again. "I take it you have some questions for me?"

She crossed her arms and leaned one shoulder back against the wall. "This whole thing stinks to high heaven."

"Human colloquialisms are so vivid," he mused, his own stance easy. "What in particular gives you pause?"

"A potentially valuable Prothean artifact turns up on Eden Prime, and then it just so happens that the colony is attacked? Can that be a coincidence? If it's not, who are the attackers, and who tipped them off that the artifact is there? Who knew about its presence?"

"Excellent questions. These are important matters to follow up on," he returned. "Anything else?"

"That ship." She had to suppress a momentary shudder. Even in the grainy visuals of the distress call, something about that vessel made her skin crawl. "Judging from the size of it—" She trailed off. It was difficult to gauge size accurately, but the ship appeared to be _immense_. Human ships that large couldn't easily move in and out of planetary gravity wells, which argued for a use of technology beyond anything they were accustomed to.

Nihlus nodded. "Yes. I've never seen a ship with that configuration before."

Val waited, but Nihlus said nothing more, regarding her with sharp green eyes and an unreadable expression. Finally, she said, "Do you have any other insights?" She couldn't quite keep the sarcasm from her voice.

He spread his hands. "I have no more information on the situation than you do, Shepard."

"Hm," she said, skeptical. "Why were we sent to retrieve the artifact?"

"Prothean artifacts are extremely valuable. Who knows what new technologies might result from such a discovery?"

"Still, it would hardly seem to require the attention of both a Spectre and a prospective Spectre." Her shoulders tensed a little; she was still adjusting to the notion of attaining that elite position. She had mixed feelings about it, to tell the truth. She liked the idea of independence and authority. While she was used to operating within the chain of command, one of the things she liked about her work was that she usually had considerable latitude to accomplish a mission as she saw fit. Being a Spectre promised a great deal more latitude, but it couldn't possibly be without some kind of strings attached. Politicking was hardly her forte, and the possibility of dividing her loyalties between the Alliance and the Council concerned her.

"Only the first of several missions." Nihlus clasped his hands behind his back. "It's interesting to observe your evaluation of the situation, by the way."

She gave him her best cool stare. "And what are you learning?"

He smiled again. "I'll tell you later."

Somehow she wasn't surprised that that's how he wanted to play it. "If this is the first of several missions, can you tell me anything about the next mission?"

He shook his head. "One mission at a time, Shepard. Let's see what happens on Eden Prime."

She nodded, not surprised by that response, either. "All right. Can you tell me anything about being a Spectre?"

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," he replied, absolutely deadpan.

Shepard stared at him. Nihlus stared back. Moments passed, and then he burst out into a full-on laugh, shoulders shaking, his doubled voice harmonizing oddly with itself. "You should have seen the look on your face! No, no, certainly I can answer questions, within reason, though we don't have much time now."

Val relaxed into a laugh herself. "I'll be honest: I wasn't expecting a human cultural joke from a turian."

"I find humans interesting. Which is why I'm here," he added, serious again. "Your species has a lot of potential. At any rate, what would you like to know?"

"How much autonomy do Spectres really have?"

"Complete operational autonomy. Really. That doesn't mean we don't have to answer to anyone. Local authorities often bristle at Spectre involvement; you'd have to decide how to respond to that. And of course we report to the Council, and the Councilors are not shy about making their opinions of our actions known. To us, at least."

She nodded, slowly. "Do Spectres ever work together?"

"I know you're used to operating as part of a team. That's your choice. Yes, Spectres sometimes collaborate. Some prefer to work solo. Some work with regular teams of subordinates, although that can be complicated; Your team won't have the privileges and authority that you do, and you'll be the one held responsible for their actions."

Shepard nodded again, considering. "And what about..." Her omni-tool beeped, cutting her off, the signal that she needed to go brief her team for the drop. "We can discuss this at more length later," Nihlus told her.

"Right," she said, pushing away from the wall and turning toward the door. "Thanks for the talk."

Half an hour later, she watched the turian make a solo drop out of the _Normandy_. It was the last time she saw him alive.

As she and her team fought their way through the beleaguered colony, the questions mounted. By the time Shepard stood on the railway platform, she was struggling to keep her anger in check. She had a colony in flames; an entire marine unit dead; an incursion of geth, who hadn't left the Perseus Veil in centuries; weird spike things that turned corpses into hostiles; an impossible spaceship; a raving scientist; and, to top it off, a dead turian Spectre. Far more questions than answers, and she really couldn't imagine a set of answers to these questions that she was going to like. Someone was damned well going to answer for this, if she had anything to say about it.

At least they'd gained possession of the damned artifact, so they had _something_ to show for this colossal mess. She paced back and forth, giving directions for securing and transporting the artifact over the comm. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Alenko getting a little too close to the thing for comfort. She was about to snap out a reprimand when she realized that something was wrong; he was being _drawn_ toward it, as if it were pulling him in. Shouting a warning, Shepard dashed toward him and shoved him out of the way.

Something sizzled along her armor and seemed to tug at her brain. She stiffened as whatever energy field had seized the lieutenant took her instead and lifted her into the air. Every muscle in her body tensed as her feet left the ground. Her eyes were peeled wide open, but what she was seeing bypassed her optic nerve entirely to impress itself directly on her brain. She wasn't sure whether she was screaming herself, or the screams were merely echoing in her mind.

_Pain. Blinding light. Fire. Machines. Fear. Destruction._

And then she crumpled into oblivion.


	20. R is for Resurrection

Miranda Lawson surveyed her report, even though she knew everything in it by heart. Nearly every bone fractured, some of them so badly shattered that the best solution was to remove the fragments entirely and replace the bones with synthetics. Sixty-three per cent of the skin lost, frozen or burned into oblivion. Forty-four per cent of skeletal muscle also lost. Additional significant damage to most internal organs. There was more than enough tissue remaining for cloning. Even with accelerated cloning techniques, however, producing an adult human would be an overly lengthy process, and might not lead to the desired results. Miranda's lips compressed. She had her own opinions on the nature vs. nurture debate, and more opportunities than most to observe the results of different environments on genetically identical individuals. No, cloning was not the answer in this case. She had made her recommendation to the Illusive Man accordingly, though she had little doubt that some other cell in the organization now possessed some of the tissue samples she had taken, with orders to pursue cloning if it should become necessary.

She looked up from the report to the body in the cryogel container in front of her. It did not look like much. If one could see past the obscuring gel, the body within looked so badly damaged that it was hardly recognizable as human. But if one could see past the wreckage that this particular human body had become, one would see that the central nervous system was intact. Intact, and therefore restorable, with the correct procedures, or so Miranda firmly believed.

Of course, they'd have to invent the correct procedures as they went.

Priority one: restore enough of the circulatory system that it could function with the assistance of a heart-lung machine. Priority two: bring the corpse out of cold storage and restart the brain. Meanwhile, other labs would be growing skin, cloning organs, and building synthetic bone replacements to Miranda's specifications, based on meticulous measurements. Miranda had in her possession every medical record dating from the time the subject was sixteen, and a few from earlier than that, plus some highly illegal scans taken surreptitiously mere weeks prior to the subject's death. Timely, that. But then, Miranda believed in being prepared.

Wilson wasn't convinced any of it would work. Miranda tolerated this, because Wilson was both intelligent and vocal in his disagreement. The way he picked holes in her ideas forced her to defend them or discard them, develop better plans and processes. That kind of opposition was worth even the price of putting up with Wilson's obnoxious personality.

It took nearly four months before Miranda was ready to bring the subject back online. She had studied and prepared for this moment nearly round the clock, taking only what minimal time she needed for rest, but rushing this step would only lead to disaster. Judicious use of specially designed nanotechnology had prepared the body, though the subject would still not be able to breathe on her own for some time. But this, this was the crucial test, the moment of truth: if they could not restore the subject's brain function, the Lazarus Project would not proceed to the next phase.

A cryogenically preserved body had to be brought up to temperature in a controlled manner to have any chance of revival. The question was whether so badly damaged a body could be revived at all. Miranda would not hold her breath as she observed the process. She was confident, and she would not let the team working on the project see her as anything less than that.

But when Wilson reported, "We have brain function," with a note of surprise, Miranda allowed herself a smile. The rest of the doctors and techs were jubilant, suppressed cheers echoing around the room.

"Well done, people," Miranda said, and saw more than one person straighten at her rare praise.

She didn't consider it a real victory, though, until she saw for herself that the preliminary neurological scans were compatible with those taken of the subject prior to her demise.

#

"Biosynthetic fusion," she told Wilson and the other project leads, with assurance.

Wilson's mouth twisted. "I thought you wanted her just as she was."

"We'll make no alterations to the brain," Miranda said. She had already argued for, and lost, that particular cause. There would be no control chip; the Illusive Man wanted the subject's former personality intact and unconstrained. "We've already agreed to use synthetic bone implants. Additional cybernetic elements will accelerate our timetable considerably without altering the basic personality parameters."

"Can you be sure of that?" asked Yamaguchi.

"As much as I can be without delving into discussions of metaphysics, and I believe those are best left for off-shift discussions after drinks," Miranda replied.

Several of the leads chuckled. Yamaguchi uttered a quiet _hmph_ as he perused the proposal Miranda had distributed. She gave them a little time to scan the details before saying, "As you can see, we have the opportunity to make material improvements that would require surgery and months of recovery for a living patient. The subject should be more combat-capable once this is done: stronger, faster, quicker to heal."

Gupta asked, "Ocular implants?"

"As you know, the eye is a delicate structure, and complex to regrow. At the moment, we have an intact optic nerve and not much more. Cybernetic ocular implants will speed up the process considerably."

Gupta nodded. "I see an experimental biotic implant is suggested."

"The original L3 implant was irretrievably damaged in any case. If we have to replace, we may as well upgrade."

"I agree." Gupta tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. "I'd only suggest the experimental L5n, rather than the L5x. I think it will be a better match for the commander's observed behavior in combat."

"Thank you, Dr. Gupta." Miranda made a note.

Wilson asked, "What about the possibility of rejection of the cybernetics?"

Miranda looked at him coolly. "What about it?"

"If they don't integrate properly, the cybernetics could cause considerable discomfort and disfigurement. At the very least."

"Then it's our job to make sure they _do_ integrate properly, isn't it, Dr. Wilson?"

Wilson subsided, but the sour expression didn't leave his face. Miranda chose to ignore him.

#

Week by week, month by month, the work continued. The team opened a bottle of champagne the day the subject breathed on her own. Shattered bones were mended or replaced; cloned organs replaced the ones that were lost. Miranda broadened the scope of her research. A subteam was delegated to look into rehabilitation. Ideally, their patient should resume consciousness without suffering the atrophied muscles of her long rest. For herself, Miranda was conducting extensive reading on the patient's background and personality. She would need to verify that the subject returned as she had been. Vids of interviews and public appearances, classified Alliance personnel records, school transcripts, every scrap of information she could get her hands on. She had already had a briefing with the Illusive Man regarding the future work of the Lazarus Cell. There would be, in due time, a need to vet the prospective crew for the Lazarus mission. Perhaps some of that process could be delegated, but Miranda didn't like the idea. She'd prefer to have more control over the personnel. They'd need to be selected carefully to work well together and set the commander at ease.

"Still working?"

Miranda looked up from her datapad, containing a fairly dull report from teenage grief-therapy sessions. "Jacob. Anything I can do for you?"

Jacob shrugged, leaning one broad shoulder against the door frame. "Everything looks fine in station security. You're sure burning the midnight oil."

Miranda leaned back in her chair. "There's a lot to do." It was late, though, the chrono on her terminal informed her, and with only Jacob here, she could relax a little. She stretched, raising her arms over her head and leaning from side to side until her spine crackled.

She didn't miss Jacob's appreciative glance at her chest. He returned his gaze to her face, however, and said, "Seems like things are going a lot better than I thought."

"The timetable is looking good," she agreed, getting to her feet to walk out the kinks. "If things continue at this pace, she'll be ready for action within six months."

Jacob crossed his arms. "And then what?"

"I assume you've heard about the colony attacks."

"Yeah, but you really think she's going to work with Cerberus?"

Miranda turned to face him, eyebrows raised. "We'll be the ones who brought her back."

"You think that's going to matter? I always thought she was the true-blue Alliance type. Plus, you know she was tight with aliens."

Jacob was correct that their patient's loyalty to Cerberus was not yet established. Miranda wasn't ready to share the entirety of the plan with him, but perhaps it was time to alert him to a portion of it. "That's why you'll be part of her crew, Jacob."

His jaw dropped briefly. "Me?"

"Of course. You've been an Alliance marine. And you're a trustworthy fellow. Someone she could rely on." She gave him a tight smile. "Wouldn't you agree?"

He scratched his head. "I guess... okay, I wasn't expecting it, but... sure, I'd work with Shepard."

Of course he would. Miranda was well aware of his penchant for hero worship. "As for working with aliens, there's a plan being developed for that."

"Oh, come on. How are you going to get aliens to sign up with Cerberus?"

"I won't," Miranda answered, favoring him with a smile again. "Shepard will."

#

"Shepard, I would like to reiterate that I think it inadvisable to open the krogan's tank until we have further analyzed Okeer's research—"

"I already did."

Miranda was briefly at a loss for words. That had been happening more and more frequently of late. "You what?"

"I already opened the tank." Nonchalant, Shepard leaned back in the chair on the other side of Miranda's desk, the fissures on her cheeks glowing orange in the light. Miranda had a momentary bust of irritation that Wilson had been right about implant rejection. Of course, they might not have had a problem if Wilson hadn't sold them out. Shepard rested an elbow on the back of her chair; the change of position meant Miranda could see the remnants of a bruise across her throat under the high collar of her jacket.

"Shepard, that was incredibly risky—"

"He's calling himself Grunt. I already told Gardner to up his requisition of levo food stores. I'm guessing a young krogan has a big appetite. You should adjust his budget accordingly."

"I... yes, I will." Miranda made a swift note to herself.

"We're hitting Purgatory next. Should be straightforward enough; I'll bring Grunt along, see how well he follows orders."

"That's a good idea," Miranda said, relieved. "If I might accompany you—"

Shepard shook her head. "It'll be me, Grunt, and Garrus."

Of course she'd be taking Vakarian. Miranda suppressed the urge to grind her teeth. She had thought it might be desirable to have a former squad member available, but she'd underestimated Shepard's attachment to the turian. She'd lost count of the number of visits to the main battery the woman made in the course of a day.

"Was there anything else, Miranda?"

Shepard was already sliding forward in her chair, ready to go. Miranda decided to hold her tongue and air her reservations at a later date. "No, that's all."

As the door slid shut behind the commander, Miranda rubbed her temples. Some days, trying to manage Shepard made the Lazarus Project itself seem simple.


	21. S is for Speech

The walk from Flux back to the _Normandy_'s dock had never seemed so long and so short at the same time. Tali and Garrus flanked Shepard, silent, matching her fast pace. "Tali, back to engineering and tell Adams what's going on. Garrus..." Shepard frowned. Maybe she'd been dragging her heels, but she hadn't yet taken the time to reassign Ashley's duties, and now she regretted it. "... see to the gunnery station. Get Wrex and Kaidan to help you. And then make sure the Mako's ready to go. We don't know what we're going to need on the other side of the Mu Relay."

They both nodded, sharp and focused. She'd come to rely on these two a lot over the course of this mission, and she knew she could trust them now. She had faith in the rest of the crew, too, but in a lot of ways, she was asking more of the Alliance personnel. With that thought, she opened a channel to the _Normandy_. "Pressly, I need all crew back to the ship, ASAP. But... discreetly."

There was a short pause on the other end. "I read you, Commander. I'll put out a general call."

"I'm on my way back. I'll explain when I get there."

Shepard fidgeted her way through the decontamination cycle, quickly dismissed Garrus and Tali, and headed back to the CIC. Pressly met her at his usual station, his lips tight. "Only about a dozen crew members off-ship, ma'am. They've all reported in and should return imminently."

"Good," she said quietly, aware of the listening crew. "Join me in the comm room, will you?"

He followed in silence. Once the doors had shut behind them, he asked, "Do we have new orders, Commander?"

"Not exactly." She crossed her arms. "The Council won't listen, and Udina's put us on lockdown."

"So I'd understood, ma'am."

"They're ignoring the real threat. For _politics_." She loaded the word with contempt.

"I suppose that's why they call them politicians," Pressly said.

Normally Pressly was one of the last people on the crew she expected a joke from. His remark startled her into a grin, breaking some of the tension that had built up in the last few hours. The older man cracked a smile in return. "Yeah, I suppose you're right on that one," she said finally. "At any rate, Captain Anderson's offered to, ah. Persuade the ambassador to release the ship."

His eyebrows went up. "Persuade. I... see."

"I'm not going to lie to you, Pressly. I'm violating my own orders. I see a clear threat that we're the ship best equipped to deal with. I'm confident that it's the right thing to do. But if this goes sideways, the entire crew could be up on charges. By rights, you should be relieving me of command and putting me under guard."

Pressly deliberately clasped his hands behind his back. "I think it might be difficult to find anyone willing to take on that duty, Commander. For what it's worth, I think the entire crew will be with you. "

Shepard let out a slow sigh of relief. She'd thought that was the case, but she'd needed to put the question to him. He was the veteran officer and often had a better sense of what the non-combat crew's mood was.

"You should talk to them, though. Explain the situation." He frowned, thoughtful. "After we leave dock, maybe."

She nodded. "I will. Thanks, Pressly."

"I'll plot out our best course to the Mu Relay," he added as they left the comm room.

"Good. Get us out of Council space as fast as you can," she suggested. "The further we are from the fleet, the better." She wanted to go around the Council fleet, not through it, and the last thing they needed was some dutiful turian cruiser captain trying to apprehend her.

Next she made her way to the cockpit. "Joker, prepare for departure—"

"Way ahead of you, Commander," he interrupted. "_Normandy_'s ready to go, just as soon as the docking clamps disengage." He nodded as the glowing red indicator on the control panel.

She felt her brows climb toward her hairline. "You were already prepping for this?"

Joker shrugged. "Figured you and the Captain were up to something when you went off to meet him at Flux."

"Don't get any funny ideas about making the ship your own," she warned.

Joker twisted around, looking miffed. "Come on, I wouldn't go anywhere without your say-so."

"Good," she said, and let herself smile. "Hope you feel up to outrunning the Citadel fleet."

He snorted. "Please, there's not a ship in this system that can catch us. Especially with me at the helm."

Still, she nearly held her breath, watching that damned red light until it switched to green. Joker's hands were moving over the controls even before she told him to get them out of there. She headed back to the CIC to check their route with Pressly, and she didn't let herself breathe freely until they cleared the Widow Relay.

When she was younger, Shepard had hated giving speeches. Talk seemed artificial, immaterial, nebulous. Besides, making a speech was downright frightening. The first time she'd had to give a speech to a crowd, after she got her Star of Terrra, she'd been petrified, and her hands had been slick with sweat, shaking worse than during the Blitz itself.

Over time she'd learned the value of the right words at the right moment. Yeah, sometimes words were empty platitudes. But even so, they could shore up morale, shed new light on a problem, create enough space for someone to think through something, tell someone things they already knew. As she thought over how to address the crew now that they were officially mutineers, she remembered what she'd said the first time, when she'd first taken command of this ship. It had been a hurried, politically-motivated handover, and everyone had been unsettled by the attack on Eden Prime. Well. Some things hadn't changed.

She nodded to Joker to open up the shipwide channel, moistened her lips, and took a breath to begin.

"This is Commander Shepard. As I'm sure you know, we have left the Citadel and are on our way to the Mu Relay. What not everyone may know is that we have departed without official authorization. The Council believes that it needs to defend the Citadel, but they're ignoring the real threat—the one everyone on this ship has seen the evidence of over the last months.

"We started this mission with a simple mandate. Over time it's become more complicated. We've seen what Saren and the geth are capable of. We've seen colonies attacked and devastated; we've seen how the Reapers destroyed the Prothean civilization and still pose a threat to our own. We've lost our own people to this. But at this point, the mission has once again become very simple. We know where Saren's going. We know he's headed for the Conduit. Our aim is to get there and prevent him from using it. We're the ones who started this mission, and now we're the ones who will finish it." She took a breath. "And we are the ones best able to finish it. We have the best ship in the fleet. We have already accomplished more than many thought we could. We have tracked down the Council's most decorated Spectre; we have answered questions that remained unsolved for fifty thousand years. We have shown that humanity can work with other species; we have demonstrated how much progress we can make when we all work together. This is, bar none, the finest crew I have ever worked with. Human and alien, combat and non-combat, you are the smartest, bravest, most skilled, most dedicated people I have known." She blinked; wouldn't do to get too sentimental now. "You're already given a lot to this mission. I'm asking you for a just a little more—of your time, your skills, your trust. We can finish this mission together, they way we started it, and we can stop Saren in his tracks. Shepard out."

With that, she closed the channel.

Kaidan met her as she entered the CIC, murmuring, "Nice speech, Commander."

"Thanks." She glanced over the crew present, all of them apparently busy at their stations, as the two of them headed down to the crew deck. "I'm asking a lot of everyone, I know. Thought they should know I appreciated it. What's your sense of the crew?"

He made a tiny shrug. "People are nervous, but they're backing you. We all saw what happened on Eden Prime and Feros." He swallowed. "And Virmire. Most everyone liked Ash. I think they want her sacrifice to matter."

"Let the crew know that if they do have an objection, they should inform XO Pressly, and it'll be noted on their records."

"Aye aye, ma'am." He moved to go.

"Kaidan," she said, and he turned back. "You doing all right?"

He swallowed, his eyes shifting away. They'd talked about Virmire before, but the crisis was still recent, fresh in the memory. She didn't expect him to be over it entirely. She just needed him to manage his emotions well enough for the mission. "Well enough, Commander. Nothing to interfere with my duties. Thanks for asking."

She nodded. There was only so much she could say, really. Some things he needed to deal with on his own. "Her sacrifice did matter, Kaidan—it certainly mattered to Kirrahe's team. It'll be hours before we reach the Mu Relay; get some rest when you're done with your other duties."

"I will."

She made a quick circuit through the ship, checking in with everyone. The ship fairly hummed with activity, everyone keyed up but doing their part, every weapon and piece of equipment checked and double-checked. Even Liara had left her usual console and was helping Dr. Chakwas do a last inspection of the medbay's equipment. It was tempting to linger there, but Shepard confined herself to taking the doctor's report and telling Liara to get some rest, as she did with the rest of the ground team. "I need you all sharp; there's no telling what we'll find on Ilos."

"Of course," said Liara in her soft voice. "And... I hope you will take your own advice, Shepard. Certainly you need to be just as ready for the mission. I hope it... is not inappropriate for me to say so." She ducked her head, her cheeks tinged faintly violet.

Shepard smiled. She was perilously close to grinning foolishly, actually, but Dr. Chakwas looked more amused than disapproving. "Yeah, I'll try, assuming I can relax a little."

"Perhaps I could... stop by later?" Liara offered, still blushing a little.

"That would be nice. Yeah. I'll... see you later," Shepard said, and retreated, her heart pounding.

Why was it that rousing morale-boosting speeches were easier than talking about _relationships_?


	22. T is for Trust

_This installment references "I Remember Me," the Colonist-specific assignment in ME1._

* * *

When they called her to the dock, saying things like "suicide risk" and "special interest in the case," Shepard hadn't quite known what she was in for. She found herself confronted with a girl who could have been a ghost, twitchy, terrified, and the only thing Val could think to do was talk and keep talking, keeping half an eye on the gun in the girl's hand. She said everything she could think of until the gun dropped, and Talitha finally let her get close enough to administer the sedative.

Once she'd delivered the sedated girl into the custody of Lieutenant Girard, Shepard left the dock and stepped into the elevator. She hit the button without really looking at it and stared blankly at the elevator doors.

How old was Talitha now, anyway? It was hard to tell from looking at her. She was too thin and scrawny, probably chronically underfed, the bones of her cheeks showing through her skin. Her eyes were at once too childlike and too bleak. She'd said she was six when the slavers took her, which meant she'd be... nineteen now, or thereabouts. When Val was nineteen, she'd been at the Academy, studying her ass off, working toward her future. What kind of future could someone treated like Talitha expect to have?

Six years old. She wasn't sure she remembered the girl, looking back. She'd been sixteen, already looking forward. Not paying a lot of attention to the littler kids, aside from keeping an eye on her own youngest brother.

If she closed her eyes, thinking back, she could summon up an image of a small girl, hair bleached by the sun, giggling and running after the other kids at the playground. She couldn't be sure it was the right girl, or even a real memory, rather than something her brain made up out of scraps of Mindoir memories. It might have been true, though. Talitha would have been just a little younger than Val's brother Ivan. She imagined Ivan in the same state, after more than a decade of abuse and conditioning, and bile rose in her throat.

_No_. Her family had _died_, damn it. They hadn't been _taken_, dragged off to batarian space, implanted and collared and prodded until they broke. She clenched her fists against the tiny, niggling doubt that said she didn't know for certain what had happened, that maybe someone had made a mistake in identifying the bodies...

The elevator doors opened. Startled, Shepard blinked at the bustle of the C-Sec Academy outside. It looked so... normal. Businesslike. People walking around, the hum of conversation filling her ears, a burst of laughter from somewhere on her right. She stood there for a second before it occurred to her that she shouldn't stay in the elevator; someone would probably want to use it. She stepped out, hastily, and tried to remember what she'd intended to do when she left the _Normandy_.

"Commander?"

She turned to her left and blinked at the uniformed C-Sec officer approaching her, until his face snapped into focus and she realized it was Garrus. That gave her a guilty little flush of embarrassment; she must have been really distracted to fail to recognize him, and she didn't want him to think she was one of those humans who claimed they couldn't tell turians apart. All he said, though, was, "Is everything all right?"

"Yes. Of course," Shepard said. "What brings you here? I thought I gave you all leave today."

"You did. I forgot something on the _Normandy_, though, so I was heading back for it." He gave her a look she couldn't quite read. "Are you sure you're all right, Commander? You're... ah... glowing."

Abruptly she became aware of her implant throbbing at the base of her skull. Looking down, she saw the blue nimbus of biotic power around her clenched fists. With an effort, she reined herself in, and the aura faded. "It's fine," she said.

Garrus started to say something and then stopped himself, simply nodding. He'd gotten only a step past her toward the elevator when she said, abruptly, "Hey, Garrus."

"Yes, Commander?"

She turned and found him half-turned back toward her, head tilted inquiringly. "Have you—I suppose you must have talked to crime victims."

"It does tend to go with the job in C-Sec. " He tilted his head to the side. "Why do you ask?"

She fidgeted in place, not sure what to ask. "How do you... cope. With someone who's so..." she broke off, fumbling for words.

Garrus scratched the side of his neck. "Ah. To be honest, Commander, this might be a conversation that could use some refreshment. I know a place nearby, if you'd like?"

She hesitated for only a moment. "Sure."

When Shepard started the day, she hadn't planned on visiting the ghosts of her past or on sharing a drink with a subordinate. The second was a lot more pleasant than the first. Garrus had led her to a place in the wards, not far from the Academy, that lacked the flashy lights or pounding music of the clubs like Flux or Chora's Den. Most of the decor was black and blue, and most of the clientele looked to be off-duty C-Sec officers. She ordered a beer; Garrus seemed to be having the dextro equivalent. "Seriously traumatized people usually get referred to a specialist," he said, "but yeah, I've had to question victims and witnesses who were pretty shaken up. It can be tricky to get them to open up, especially when they're afraid of something. Reprisal, say. There was one case—the witness lived in a bad part of Tayseri Ward and was afraid the local gang would come after her if she talked— I had to do a lot of talking to convince her C-Sec could protect her." He flicked a mandible. "And pulled some strings to make sure she'd _get_ some protection. Not strictly protocol, but..."

"You've already mentioned how you feel about that," Shepard said, relaxing a little into her seat.

He chuckled. "Yeah."

He told her about a couple more cases, while she listened, sipping her drink, letting the calm atmosphere soothe her. It was interesting how different his demeanor was. They'd talked about his work at C-Sec before, and he'd expressed frustration with its protocols and procedures. She wasn't without sympathy to that, although she'd reminded him that the rules were usually there for a reason. And when he talked about Saren, or any of the criminals he'd tracked before, he usually spoke with a tone of dislike, or even contempt. When he talked about other people's suffering, though, the mugging victims and murder witnesses and other unfortunates who'd crossed his path, he spoke carefully, precisely, with a softer note that she hadn't heard from him before. She'd already developed considerable respect for Vakarian as a combatant—not least because his tech savvy and long-range marksmanship were a good complement to her own skills—but she liked this glimpse of a more compassionate side.

"What brought this on?" he asked.

She sighed. She'd been letting him do all the talking, and it showed. Her bottle was nearly empty, while his was mostly full. "I got called in to deal with a young woman today. She'd been... pretty badly traumatized, and they were afraid she'd hurt herself."

Garrus's mandibles tilted in. "What happened to her?"

"Slavers."

His expression closed up entirely. "Oh. I see."

"She was just a kid when they took her, about thirteen years ago."

"We hit some slavers' bases back when I was in the military," he said after a moment. "Sometimes we got lucky and freed some captives. Other times..."

"Yeah. I've had missions like that, too. Usually the people we rescue hadn't been taken that long."

"She did good to get away now," Garrus offered.

"Yeah. I suppose so." It didn't seem like enough.

"Why did they call you? Doesn't seem like your... area of expertise, Commander. Ah, no offense meant."

"None taken. It's not." She blew out a breath, sorting out her thoughts. "She was from the same colony as me. I didn't really know her... before, but they couldn't get anyone else quickly and they thought it might help. I was sixteen when the attack came."

She expected something more, questions about her family or how she'd survived, maybe, but Garrus merely nodded. She wondered if he'd looked up her history. It wouldn't be hard to do. She was grateful for the silence, regardless. Eventually she said, "She was only six. She could grown up to be anything. Anyone. And now..."

Garrus nodded. "It's hard to overcome that kind of conditioning. Or so they say, anyway."

She sighed. "Yeah. I got her calmed down, and they're taking her to a psychiatric facility, but I don't know how much of a favor I did her."

"She's still young, and she managed to get away. Seems like she still has a chance."

"Yeah, you're probably right." They had both finished their drinks now, and she'd been sitting still long enough. "Thanks for the talk." She meant it; she felt far calmer than she had, and able to focus again.

"My pleasure." Garrus reached for his pocket, but Shepard pulled out her credit chit first.

"I'll get this one," she said, getting up to pay.

"Oh—thanks, Commander, but—"

"You can buy next time," she suggested.

They walked out of the bar together, and she blinked at the faux daylight of the Citadel. "Thanks again. Sorry to keep you from your leave."

"It's no trouble, really, Commander. I didn't have anything scheduled."

She smiled. "Listen, Garrus—just Shepard is fine. Especially off-duty."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "All right. I'll try to remember that, C— Shepard."

"There you go. That wasn't so hard, right?"

"It's a challenge. Right up there with memorizing the C-Sec manual."

She laughed, and he grinned back, and she clapped him companionably on the shoulder before she went on her way, in a much easier mood.


	23. U is for Uniform

Val Shepard settled the chain of her dogtags around her neck, looking at the mirror as the tags and chain disappeared beneath the collar of her navy-blue Alliance fatigues.

_Consider yourself reinstated_.

She'd hated leaving Anderson behind, but he was right; he was best suited to coordinate whatever resistance forces Earth could muster, and she was best positioned to wring _something_ out of the Council.

Maybe. If they'd listen.

_I told them this was coming, but did they believe me?_

If she had to, she could circumvent the Council altogether. She had contacts all over the galaxy, after all, and she'd pull every string in her possession...

... if she could find them.

She'd been incommunicado for six months. She didn't even know where her people were, scattered around the galaxy, her team, her crew, her friends... She gripped the sink with both hands, her knuckles whitening. "Keep them safe," she whispered, not sure to whom she was speaking. She'd never really believed in any god.

Maybe Liara would know where to find everyone, although that was another awkward conversation she needed to face. Her ex-girlfriend installed two decks down, her ex-lieutenant barely clinging to life in the medbay, her ship a mess of stripped bulkheads, dangling wires, hastily installed tech, crewed by nervous marines and technicians who hadn't signed on for this.

It was for times like these that the acronym SNAFU had been invented. "Just like old times," she murmured to herself, smoothing the blue uniform shirt into place. For a moment she could hear exactly how Garrus would have said it, part laughing, part resigned, part exhilarated, and her heart ached. Then she pushed those feelings aside.

Time to be Commander Shepard again.

Her cabin looked like a room in an unfinished hotel, only a couple of uniforms in the closet, the fish tank and display cases empty. She didn't even have any toothpaste in the bathroom. She'd have to lay in supplies at the Citadel. Everything even had that odd new-metal-and-plastic smell. The Alliance must have stripped everything down, cleansing every bit of offending Cerberus technology out of the place. They were probably sad they couldn't do the same thing to her without killing her.

Every bit of technology except the one that really mattered, of course. "EDI," she said as she stepped into the elevator. "How are you doing?"

The familiar feminine voice answered her immediately. "I am functioning close to optimally, Shepard. Welcome back."

"Thanks, EDI. Wish it were under better circumstances. Is there anything I should know about?"

"The _Normandy_ sustained minimal damage during our departure from Mars. That is fortunate, as Engineering is short-staffed. One Kodiak shuttle is currently not operational—"

Shepard winced, remembering. "I'm aware, EDI."

"However, there is another available for use."

She nodded. "Good. How's Kaidan doing?"

"Major Alenko's condition is critical but currently stable."

She asked EDI for the current crew complement. She didn't really have time to make a full tour of the ship at the moment, but she wanted to start remembering names and duties. Not only Engineering, but the whole ship was short-staffed. She wasn't sure if they'd be able to take on new crew at the Citadel. The Alliance had a presence there, as all the Council races did, but Command was bound to be in chaos. "Send Alliance Command on the Citadel a full report on what we saw on Earth and Mars, and notify them on the Citadel that we're going to need supplies for a crew that size. We're not even carrying rations, are we?"

"We are carrying a limited quantity of emergency rations. The request has already been relayed to the Alliance's Citadel base. Lieutenant Cortez took it upon himself to make the appropriate requisitions."

Shepard noted that with approval. It was good to know someone was thinking ahead instead of simply panicking. "Good. What are Lieutenant Cortez's normal responsibilities?"

"He has been overseeing modifications to the cargo bay."

She'd have to look up the enterprising lieutenant when she got a chance.

The CIC was full of harried-looking crew members bent over consoles. Shepard made a point of smiling reassuringly and giving the ones in her path a few words of encouragement. They'd done well, really, managing the ship during the flight from Earth to Mars and now to the relay, running silent and dodging Reapers as they went—even though she suspected EDI was quietly compensating for any shortcomings the crew might have had, as well as the absence of hands at several stations.

Stepping into the cockpit felt achingly familiar, even if the consoles and lighting had been retrofitted to Alliance standard. "Hey, Joker. Thanks for the pick-up."

"No problem, Shepard. You need door to door shuttle service, I provide."

In spite of the mess they were in, the corner of her mouth quirked up. "And in the process, you get to be the only Alliance officer to steal a frigate twice and live to tell the tale."

"Yeah, well." He adjusted his cap. "Three times, if you count when we stole her from Cerberus."

She shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. She wanted to deny that that one counted. In the absence of a comeback, the silence gathered.

There was something terribly and soothingly familiar about what she was doing. Standing in the cockpit, just behind and to the side of Joker's seat, arms crossed over her chest, looking out at the stars. How many times had they done this before? Too many to count. She glanced down at Joker, remembering a cap and shirt of a different color. "It's good to be back in blue," she murmured.

Joker snorted. "Yeah. Funny how they want you back in uniform as soon as all hell breaks loose."

She shrugged one shoulder. "I'm a commodity in demand."

"They treat you okay?" he asked. "Back in... you know. House arrest, or whatever."

"Hell, Joker, it was cushy. Practically a vacation." A vacation in which she'd been climbing the walls out of frustration and fury, but who needed to hear details like that? "Did a lot of reading. Played cards with Vega."

"Vega?"

"My guard. Big guy. Think he's down in the cargo bay punching things because he's pissed we left Earth."

"Yeah, 'cause we can totally take on a Reaper invasion solo."

She shrugged again. "I told him to make himself useful and take over the armory. Gave him something else to think about. What have you been doing the last six months?"

"Mostly I've been here, 'consulting' on the retrofit," he said. "Rated a marine guard of my own, like I was going to run for it or get violent or something."

"You're a tricky character, Moreau. People have to watch you like a hawk."

He spun the chair around, looking up at her with a grin. "Put one over on them anyway."

EDI's blue orb popped up. "Jeff was instrumental in helping to conceal my true nature."

"Good job," Shepard replied, grinning back at him.

"Shepard, requisitions orders have been relayed to the appropriate offices," EDI added. "Medical assistance will be standing by when we dock, as well." The orb abruptly winked out.

Joker's smile disappeared. "You, uh... you think Kaidan's going to be okay?"

Her arms tightened across her chest. "I hope so. I mean, yeah. He's tough, right? Nobody from our crew goes down easy."

"Right," said Joker. "Course not."

Shepard shifted her weight, looking out the viewport, trying not to think about Ash. She couldn't help but blame herself for Kaidan's condition. She hadn't been fast enough, sharp enough, good enough to put the bot down before she got a grip. They'd all been caught off-guard; they'd underestimated the capacity of the infiltration unit. Stupid. Didn't help that six months of down time left her a little rusty. If only the Alliance hadn't benched her, she might have been in better shape to prevent Kaidan's injury. She hoped—had to hope—that she was up for whatever came their way. With a full-on Reaper invasion underway, she sure couldn't believe whatever it was would be _easy_. "I hadn't even held a gun in six months," she muttered to herself.

Joker must have heard her, though. "Who says you need a gun, Shepard? Thought you could just... _whoosh_... and then punch somebody in the face."

She forced a smile, absently feeling at her amp port. "Yeah." She hadn't worn her amp in six months either. Couldn't risk giving the prisoner something that made her into a weapon, after all, no matter how cooperative she was being. She'd kept in shape, but running and lifting weights wasn't the same, didn't keep her edge honed for combat.

No use in fretting about it, really. She would just have to _get_ ready for whatever the war or the Council or whoever was going to throw at her. She _was_ glad to back in Alliance blue, like she was back in her right skin. Even with six months of wasting her damned time.

"Approaching the relay," Joker said, suddenly businesslike. "Preparing for jump to Widow Relay. Next stop, the Citadel."

"Thanks, Joker," she said, starting to head down to the medbay. She paused before leaving the cockpit. "Wouldn't be the same without you."

He snorted. "Don't get mushy on me, Shepard. I know you just want me around to haul your ass out of the fire."

"You know it, Flight Lieutenant," she said, with a real smile. It was good to know at least something hadn't changed.


	24. V is for Violin

Even when the _Normandy_ was docked at the Citadel, Shepard never seemed to be able to stop moving. It felt as though she spent every minute running from one part of the massive station to another, running errands, meeting with anxious officials, soothing ruffled feathers. She usually dropped into bed at the end of the day exhausted, her brain still buzzing with checklists and minutiae and appointments, but there was something to be said for keeping busy.

She was running errands down in the refugee holding zone when she heard it: a sweet, plaintive melody, a little hesitant, punctuated with squeaks and scratches. But she recognized the tune.

She closed her eyes, and for a moment everything faded away: the smell of too many bodies crammed into too small a space for too long; the constant noise of chatter and argument; the dingy, battered surroundings. She remembered the colony's drab plascrete prefabs adorned with bright native flowers, the windows open to admit cool air and a view of the stars while the music soared into the night sky.

She opened her eyes, and followed the sound, excusing herself past refugees standing or sitting in clusters, looking for the player. She finally spied him sitting in a corner.

It was a batarian.

For a moment, she literally saw red. Memories of fire and blood blossomed behind her eyes. When her vision cleared, she was standing practically on top of the batarian, and she ground out through clenched teeth, "That's a human instrument. Where did you get that?"

The batarian pressed his back against the wall and blinked up at her in shock: first the upper pair of eyes, then the lower, then the upper again. "A... a friend let me use it."

"A _friend_." Her voice was rising, and she almost didn't recognize it. "Must be a pretty good friend, to teach you human songs and loan you a valuable instrument." Most of the refugees had practically nothing of their own; the violin probably wasn't anything special, but it had to be someone's most prized possession, to be here at all.

"Y-yeah. My friend's human." The batarian's voice wavered. "Who are you, anyway? I didn't do anything wrong..."

Shepard registered, finally, that the batarian's voice was higher-pitched than she expected, and cracking, and that the person she loomed over was slighter and shorter than herself. A kid. She was terrorizing a batarian kid. A wave of shame swept over her, and her face burned. "Sorry. My mistake."

She backed away and turned, barely looking where she was going. She bumped into more than one refugee as she went, muttering apologies. A few steps later, a solid, familiar suit of blue and silver armor appeared in her path. She stopped short, as Garrus waved a hand in front of her face. "Shepard? You all right?"

She hesitated, staring at a smudge on the floor a few feet in front of her. Dirt from which planet, she wondered. "I'm fine."

Garrus tilted his head downwards, drawing her gaze up. He was giving her one of those looks: a measuring, watchful scrutiny. C-Sec face, she sometimes called it. She put her head up and her shoulders back, managing a smile that felt thin and stretched. "I'm fine," she repeated.

"Sure you are," Garrus said. As she started moving again, he turned smoothly and fell in beside her, the cool metal of his armor brushing against her shoulder. It was practically magical how easily a path cleared in front of two people when one of them was a turian in heavy armor. Garrus nodded or waved a vague salute at half a dozen people, C-Sec officers or turians in battered armor. Once they'd passed through the security checkpoint and reached the quieter area outside the quarantine zone, he said, as if it had just occurred to him, "How about a break? I know a quiet place where the drinks are good."

Shepard sighed and shook her head. "There's too much to do. I have to head over to the embassies to check in with Bailey, and..."

"Shepard. You've hardly stopped moving in days. Slow down for an hour. Bailey can wait."

"Yeah, and after Bailey there are twenty more things that can't." She started for the elevator.

Garrus matched her pace. "Maybe, but when I see you yelling at some juvenile batarian, I'm thinking you should take a break."

She stopped short, feeling the uncomfortable prickle of shame all over again. She couldn't quite look Garrus in the eye as he stepped in front of her. He said, gently, "I'm guessing you didn't do that without some reason."

She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Maybe she was losing it. Maybe he was right, too much stress without enough rest. "Fine. Where did you have in mind?"

She let him lead the way toward the elevator and from there to a neighborhood she didn't know, into a booth at a bar. Not Purgatory; as advertised, it was quiet and unfamiliar. She waited while Garrus ordered the drinks, folding her hands together to keep from drumming her fingers on the table. He came back and set a glass of something dark in front of her. "Sorry. They're out of Earth liquors. This one's salarian."

She shrugged and took a sip. Not entirely unlike whiskey. More potent than she might normally drink in the middle of the day, but... why the hell not.

They drank in silence for several minutes before Garrus said, "You don't have to talk about it. But... if you want to..."

She propped up her head on her hand. The words slipped out before she formed the thought to say them. "My father played."

"That instrument?"

"Yeah."

He looked down at her free hand, spread on the table, and touched it lightly. "You never talk about them."

"Would you, if it had happened to you?"

Garrus glanced away. "Probably not."

She kicked herself mentally. He _had_ told her about his mother's illness eventually. And if he wasn't talking about the rest of his family now, she knew why. She picked up her glass and drained the rest of it. When she set it down, she said, "My father was an agronomist. Irrigation systems and soil conditioning. That sort of thing."

"Important for a young colony," Garrus noted.

"True." She ran her finger around the rim of the empty glass. "But music was really what he loved. We didn't get a big mass allowance for personal possessions when we shipped out for Mindoir, and I think he let my mother use most of it, but he brought his violin. He played every chance he got. Had a band, for a while, with some other men in the colony. And he used to play us to sleep, when I was little."

It had been a long time since she'd said anything but the barest facts about her family. Yet she found herself talking, haltingly, about her three little brothers and her difficult relationship with her mother. Garrus was a good listener, she reflected, obviously intent but seldom interrupting. "It's stupid to... to think about all that now," she said, after a while. "There's too much going on to dwell on old losses."

"It's not stupid."

She frowned in response, skeptical.

Garrus shook his head. "It's not. We're all... everyone's a little frayed, Shepard. And a lot of the refugees are in the situation you were in. I don't think it's strange that being down there brings old memories to mind."

Val nodded, considering. Her omni-tool beeped softly, reminding her of the list of things she wasn't currently doing. "Anyway... thanks."

He got up as she did. "Any time."

#

Before the _Normandy_ left port, Shepard went down to the docks again. She found the batarian not far from where she'd seen him the first time. There was a human next to him, shabby and gray-haired, lying on his back snoring, with the violin case under his arm. The kid stiffened as she approached, looking at her warily with all four eyes.

She stopped a respectful distance away. "Hey. I wanted to say I'm sorry. You play pretty well."

His jaw dropped as he stared up at her. Then he blinked all his eyes at once and said, "Thanks."

"Look. I screwed up, so I'm here to apologize. Here. Something for you and your friend." She held out a credit chit in a moderate amount—not something that would immediately get them mugged—and a disc of music, recordings along with notation, readable by any standard omni-tool.

It felt like she held them out for a long time before the kid reached out and took them silently. She hesitated briefly before nodding and turning to walk away.

"Hey," he called after her, and she turned back. "They said you were that human war hero who hates batarians."

She gritted her teeth. "Look, batarian slavers killed my whole family, so I'm not exactly..." She shook her head. "But that didn't have anything to do with you."

His gaze shifted down. "I'm sorry."

Val blinked. An apology to her was the last thing she had expected, and for a moment she didn't know what to say. "Thanks. Just take good care of the instrument, okay?"

He nodded. "I will."


	25. W is for Will

The golden particles showered down over Tuchanka for hours, drifting with the wind, dissolving on contact with anything solid. EDI's analysis was that the entire planet would be exposed to the genophage cure within fourteen hours.

Garrus inhaled carefully, watching the slow fall of the healing dust. The air smelled like nothing he could describe, overwhelming Tuchanka's usual aura of dust and metal and smoke. EDI had also reported, from Mordin's notes, that the substance should be harmless to any other organic species, which quelled some of his concern.

Not all of it, though. As beautiful as it was, he couldn't watch the glittering rain without feeling a twist in his gut. It was ingrained too deep, drummed into him since he was a child in school: the genophage was and remains necessary. The krogan would not control themselves, so we gave them the genophage. Without the genophage, the krogan would overrun the galaxy. The salarians made it and we delivered it. We have no regrets. We'd do it again. Years of locking up krogan for crimes ranging from violent to petty hadn't done much to change his opinion.

And yet. Getting to know Wrex had forced him to rethink some things. With Wrex at the helm... maybe. And Eve seemed... sensible. Garrus had had a few opportunities to talk to her, and thought she had a strength of will even Wrex couldn't top. Maybe she'd be a calming influence.

In the end, maybe it didn't matter. Curing the genophage was the price of krogan support for Palaven. Wrex had demanded, Victus had agreed, and Shepard... Shepard had made it happen. Like usual. Settling a galactic conflict that spanned over a thousand years? All in a day's work.

Garrus finally spotted her familiar profile ahead of him. Shepard and Wrex sat side by side, perched on a low, broken concrete wall, looking out over the stark, blasted landscape. The wind carried their voices back to him.

"Your sister, huh?" Shepard said. "Does that mean I have to go through some kind of krogan ritual, too?"

"You already went through the Rite with Grunt, Shepard. That's good enough for me."

There was a moment of quiet before Shepard said, "Considering how you treat your brother, I'm not sure how honored I should be."

Wrex's booming laugh echoed against the surrounding rocks. "Ha! You're worth at least twenty of Wreav. Maybe forty."

"Oh, that is an honor, then. I'm not going to breed you any clan babies, though, I can tell you that."

Garrus frowned, trying to interpret her tone.

Wrex grunted. "Well. Nobody's perfect. _Somebody_ keeps reminding me of all the ways our infertile females can serve." After a second, he added, "You really never having any?"

"Never was sure I wanted any. And now..." Shepard laughed a little. "Kind of in the middle of fighting a war here, Wrex."

"That's no reason not to think about the future." Wrex's voice was firm.

"Mm," said Shepard.

Time to intervene, Garrus decided. He deliberately made noise as he approached, and once within range, called out, "Your supplies of dextro liquor are seriously lacking, Wrex."

Wrex snorted. "Don't complain about the hospitality, Garrus. You wouldn't want to see the usual Tuchanka welcome for turians."

"Ah, Wrex, that hurts my feelings. Nothing special for your only turian friend?"

"How about I make it up to you by giving you your planet back?"

Garrus made a show of considering, looking up into the sky and scratching the side of his head. "That'll do," he declared, and took a seat on the wall next to Shepard.

She sent him a smile, absent-mindedly rolling her right shoulder.

"You all right?" he asked quietly. He knew she'd had more than one close shave with a Brute. They'd done impossible things before, but even covering her as she dashed to the maw hammers had tested his own accuracy and reflexes severely. He knew he'd be feeling it in the morning; he couldn't imagine how Shepard would be feeling.

"Fine," said Shepard. "Hoping I don't have to play dodge-the-Reaper again tomorrow, though."

Wrex laughed. "You had all the fun."

"Fun," Garrus said dryly. "Yes. That was just what I was thinking out there, how much fun it was."

"Stop whining, turian. You losing your edge?"

Probably, Garrus thought. From chasing Saren to Omega to the Collector mission to the Reaper task force to watching Palaven burn, it had been a long road. "Not all of us took a two-year vacation to sit on a throne, Wrex," he said lightly.

"You try keeping these idiots in line," Wrex said with a guffaw. "Then tell me if it's a vacation."

Shepard just smiled. "Gonna be a lot more little idiots before too long."

"Naw," said Wrex. "We're going to raise these whelps right. Smarter. Not going to waste their lives as killing for credits."

She nodded. "I'd drink to that. If we could all drink," she added with a crooked grin at Garrus.

"And to Mordin," he added.

Her smile dimmed. "Yeah." She cast a sidelong look at Wrex. "You really going to name one of the kids for him?"

"Don't think I can get out of it now."

"He's the one who gave your people a future, Wrex, not me."

Wrex grunted. "Think there's enough credit to go around, Shepard."

She might have been about to speak again, but her comm pinged first, and she sighed. "Yes, Traynor, what is it? Okay." She picked up her feet, spun around on the wall, and stepped off, going back the way Garrus had come.

It was starting to grow dark. The drift of golden particles seemed to have dissipated, leaving behind a dull haze that obscured the stars. Somewhere in the distance a pack of varren bayed. When the sound of Shepard's steps had faded, Wrex said, "She holding up all right?"

Garrus tapped idly at the concrete he was sitting on. "She's carrying a lot of weight," he said carefully.

"You think I don't know that? I've been in that war room. Everybody wants a piece of her. Councilors, Alliance, your Primarch."

"You," Garrus added, without heat.

"And that's not what I asked you," Wrex continued, ignoring him. "I asked how she's holding up."

Garrus blew out a breath. "I don't think she's sleeping enough. She's mostly eating all right." The truth was, she already seemed worn. Sometimes she acted like her usual self: energetic, gregarious, lifting up her crew by sheer force of will. But other times, her patience frayed more quickly than usual, and she seemed quieter, more withdrawn. He knew she had nightmares often. She would let him soothe her, but she didn't talk about them. She was keeping a lot of things to herself. He'd gotten her to talk a little, back on the Citadel, but he wasn't sure it was enough. "I think she's pushing herself too hard," he admitted.

Wrex nodded. "What I thought."

"Then why'd you ask?" Garrus returned with a bit of irritation. "If you see so much, down in the war room."

Wrex glared at him sideways with one red eye. "Because I'm not going to _be_ there any more, Garrus. Wanted to make sure you knew the score."

Garrus bristled. "I'm watching her back. You can count on that."

"A warrior's in the same fight for too long, it's easy to give up."

"Shepard never gives up," Garrus scoffed.

"You sure about that?" asked Wrex. "I don't mean on the fight. I mean, giving up on everything that's not the fight. And then, win or lose..." He shrugged. "There's not much left."

Garrus thought that one over, uneasy. He could see what Wrex was getting at; he'd known older C-Sec officers like that, closed off to everything but the job. Shepard, though—Shepard was vital and fiery, always interested in everyone around her. She'd come back from the dead with her sanity and her spirit intact.

And somewhere in those months since the Collector base, she'd started to get stretched too thin. Garrus frowned out at the darkening wilderness of Tuchanka. "I'll look out for her," he repeated, starting to formulate a plan. Maybe he could convince her to take some down time on their next trip to the Citadel.

"Do that," Wrex said. "Just mind what I said."

"I will." He glanced over his shoulder. "I should see what's going on now."

Wrex grunted and waved him off. It didn't take Garrus long to find Shepard, since she was heading back toward him. "Shuttle's on the way," she informed him. "I'll have to send Wrex a farewell message. Apparently I've got a call waiting from the salarian councilor."

"Maybe they're coming around?" Garrus suggested, as they headed for the landing pad.

"We can hope." She paused. "Everything all right?"

He had just been thinking that she looked tired, in fact. But he said, "Yeah. Just talking to Wrex. Big day."

"I'll say." She rubbed the back of her neck and rolled her shoulder with a grimace.

"You should get that looked at."

"Don't hover," she said, but she was smiling. "I will."

The shuttle landed lightly in front of them, as Garrus cleared his throat and asked, "Did it bother you? What Wrex said about kids?"

"Oh, you heard that?" She shrugged as she settled into her seat, giving Cortez a wave, and Garrus took the seat next to her. "Well, I was serious. I was never sure I wanted to have my own, and now hardly seems like the time."

"Fair enough." He hesitated for a moment. "Anything you want to do when this is over?"

Shepard snorted. "Assuming there is an 'over'?" Her eyes went distant for a second before she shook her head. "A long vacation sounds good."

"Room for two on that vacation?"

She shot him a grin, wide and bright, in spite of her weariness. "Of course. Hey, I know. We could go skiing!"

"And which human sport is that?" he asked, leaning back in his seat.

Shepard looked positively mischievous. "You strap boards to your feet and slide down snowy mountains at high speeds."

Garrus groaned. "Snow? Really? I thought you said a vacation."

"It's a time-honored human pastime, Garrus. Be more sensitive."

"We couldn't go somewhere warm?" he asked plaintively.

She laughed, bumping her shoulder against his, their armor clanking together. Garrus smiled back. They'd be all right. _She'd_ be all right. He'd make sure of it.


	26. X is for Xenophile

Val Shepard locked the door to her quarters, told EDI to hold her calls, and, with some trepidation, sat down at the terminal and brought up the files. It wouldn't be so bad, maybe. She was just being irrationally squeamish. It wasn't as if she'd never seen porn before.

Porn recommended to her by her salarian doctor was another story, though. How Mordin had even known what she and Garrus were planning... well, starting to plan... she didn't know, and it made her feel paranoid. She'd thought they'd been discreet. Kasumi had dropped a hint, too, but the thief was incurably nosy. If things were obvious enough that the scientist who spent the vast majority of his time in his lab knew something was up, she was afraid to find out what the rest of the crew thought.

She tapped the interface idly with a finger, not quite daring to press 'play' yet. But if Garrus was planning some _research_... she smiled at the memory of their conversation, him shifting his weight from side to side, mandibles twitching. She was verging on grinning foolishly, she realized. Well, why the hell not? There was no one else around to see her, for once.

She hadn't been about to tell Mordin that what was going on between them was a lot more than stress relief. To her, anyway. That was something Garrus deserved to know before anyone else, and the idea of telling Garrus that she... cared for him... made her mouth feel dry and her heart pound. There was no point in scaring him off. He'd already confessed to being nervous, and she didn't want to make him any more so. Who knew if he would or could ever return her sentiments, anyway, and... it was worth it, even if he didn't.

Firmly, she returned her mind to the reason she'd come up here. If Garrus was going to do research, she should do her part, too. She frowned, reflecting that she would have been well advised to do some research before rushing on a little too quickly with Liara. She had naively bought into the assumption that asari were pretty much like humans, and the evening had turned a little awkward on realizing that they _weren't_, and no, Liara didn't particularly enjoy being touched _there_ or _there_, and what she did find pleasurable was not necessarily what Val would have assumed. They'd worked it out well enough in the end, but she could have saved them both some uncomfortable fumbling if she'd prepared herself better.

She frowned at the terminal, recalling with a pang of guilt the half dozen letters to Liara she'd started and been unable to finish. Liara deserved an explanation—a real conversation—_something_, especially if Val was starting a relationship with someone else. _Particularly_ if that someone were a mutual friend. But Liara herself was so different, Val didn't know what to make of her. Their reunion on Illium had been one of the most strained conversations Shepard had had in her life. She had stiffened instinctively when Liara greeted her with a kiss. Liara had blinked, a momentary flash of hurt crossing her face, before resuming a cool, professional demeanor. That facade had stayed in place even though Val had tried, clumsily, to draw her out, except for the flashes of anger that broke through at times, which seemed so uncharacteristic of the shy archaeologist Val had known. She wasn't even sure how to talk to Liara any more, which made it much more difficult to figure out how to tell her what needed to be said.

The truth was—she probably should never have been involved with Liara in the first place. Oh, she'd definitely been attracted. She had been flattered by the asari's obvious interest, intrigued by her beauty and intelligence. She remembered Liara giving them all a briefing about her Prothean research. Val had missed most of the information; instead, she'd been idly wondering whether Liara's freckles extended below her collar, and just how many of them there were. Much later, she'd had the chance to count them, while Liara laughed and squirmed at her touch. Yes, she'd been attracted... but she'd also ignored the signs that Liara was more emotionally invested in the relationship than she was. It wasn't until after defeating Sovereign and shipping out again, with Liara still aboard despite their shortage of Prothean artifacts, that it had really sunk in how often Liara talked dreamily about the future. More accurately, about a shared future that Shepard didn't feel ready for in the least. She had been uncomfortably contemplating whether they should break up when she'd... when the _Normandy_ had been destroyed.

It wasn't until later—only weeks later for Shepard— that she'd started to realize she might have been falling for someone else all along. She had been pacing around the briefing room, waiting for a medical report on her best friend, her hair still damp from washing his blood out of it, her stomach in knots. She'd lost people before, she kept telling herself, and she'd weathered it, so why did the prospect of losing Garrus seem so unbearable? Then he'd come striding in, battered but alive, even cracking a joke; and when he'd walked out again, she'd watched him go with the creeping realization that there might be more to her feelings than simple friendship.

Even then, there was no one moment that brought the situation into focus. Garrus had changed over two years, too, sometimes in ways that left her off-balance. He fell in at her back or her side as if there had never been a break, but he gave tactical advice more freely than she was used to. That came home to her sharply after a near-disastrous raid on a merc base, while she, Garrus, and Zaeed sat in the shuttle on the way back nursing their bruises. "You know, Shepard," he'd drawled, "I don't want to cramp your style, but there are alternatives to a frontal assault."

She'd looked up from scowling at the dents in her armor. "What do you have in mind?"

He'd shrugged and laid out an efficient little infiltration plan that didn't even require any personnel changes, finishing with: "But I know how much you love charging in and using your shotgun at point-blank range, so there's room for that in the plan, too."

"I'm adaptable," she had protested. "Sometimes I punch them in the face first."

Garrus had given her a lopsided grin at that, and Zaeed had snorted in response. After that, she'd made a point of talking through missions with Garrus before they hit dirt.

Off the field, he kept to himself more, and more often had dark moods that she observed with concern. She'd given him his space—until that mess with Sidonis, at least—but even so, they'd joked together and talked together, and there was no one on the crew she could rely on more, in these strange new circumstances. It wasn't any one thing, but rather the steady accumulation of moments, as their friendship rebuilt itself, that made her sure of her affection, leading her eventually to the day they'd been bantering about dealing with stress, and Garrus had told an unexpectedly suggestive little story.

It was like being on the battlefield, almost; she'd recognized her opening and simply... taken it, only afterward cringing at the words that had come out of her mouth. They'd had the desired effect, though: instead of laughing, Garrus had stared at her, undoubtedly picking up on her speeding pulse, and agreed, voice growing firmer as they talked.

She hadn't exactly made her feelings clear. Chances were, he thought the only thing on the table was sex. Good enough, for now. And so she found herself here, queuing up turian porn on her terminal. She'd always found turians attractive, at least. Interesting to look at, between the broad shoulders, narrow waists, and wider hips. And if it meant making whatever time they had together better... well. That was well worth any private embarrassment, wasn't it?

She pressed 'play.'

It was possibly the least titillating session of porn vids she'd ever watched. Not because of the content, but because she felt as though she ought to be taking notes. She did, in fact, reach for a datapad at one point, but wrote no more than "How the hell is she doing that?" as the coppery turian female on the screen made her partner writhe in ecstasy. She found herself craning her neck sideways to follow the action, making a mental list of probable erogenous zones, cataloging reactions. It was a lot more clinical than arousing.

Val dreamed, though, of lean, elegant limbs, arching crests, and angular bodies, slimmer and more lithe than they looked in armor. And of course she was no sooner starting her rounds in the morning than the elevator doors opened, and Garrus stepped in.

"Good morning, Shepard."

Her face felt warm. "Good morning, Garrus," she said, striving hard to maintain a neutral tone. "Where are you headed?"

"Engineering. I need to check some figures with Tali. You're going down, too?"

Oh. Damn. Her cheeks felt hotter. "I. Yeah. You know. Checking in with everyone. Making the rounds."

"Right." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn his head to scrutinize her. She stared resolutely at the door. Don't think about the vids, that was the ticket. Except now she was thinking about the vids. Shit. Garrus said, "Are you... all right?"

"I'm fine," she said quickly. "Why do you ask?"

"Your face looks a little red."

Shepard sighed and put a hand to her face. Her fingers felt cool. "I'm blushing, that's all. You must have seen a human blush before." Why was the damned elevator taking so long?

"Oh. All right. I don't think I've seen _you_ blush, though, I mean—" Garrus stopped abruptly.

She turned to look at him. Apparently it was his turn to stare straight ahead, mandibles tight to his face. "Mordin talked to you?" she asked.

"Uh. Yeah. You?"

"Yeah." She looked back at the door, and saw his head move. She glanced back, and his eyes snapped away.

She could have sworn she'd saw him look her up and down. Her eyes narrowed. "Were you checking me out?"

"Depends," he said. "Why are you blushing?"

She turned her flintiest glare on him. "Research," she said.

He regarded her with an unexpectedly serious expression. "This going to work?"

She blinked and let her expression soften, giving him a deliberate, obvious sweep from head to toe. "Yeah. I think so. Going to work for you?"

His eyes brightened. "Yeah. Definitely."

The elevator came to a stop and the doors swished open. Shepard hesitated, half wishing it had taken just a little longer. Garrus gestured at the door. "After you, Commander."

She nodded and stepped out, Garrus a few paces behind. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and found his eyes had to snap up to meet hers.

Oh yeah. Definitely checking her out. This... this was going to work fine.

They parted ways as Garrus headed into engineering. Not even Jack angrily demanding why Shepard was so fucking cheerful this morning could wipe the smile off her face, though.


	27. Y is for Yearning

**Warning: Spoilers for the Citadel DLC ahead.**

* * *

There had been a lot of explaining to do, to both C-Sec and Alliance Command, after Shepard had brought her stolen ship back into drydock. She'd gone over the ship, too, returning her personal possessions to her quarters, checking on the fish, making sure that her damned clone and those hired mercs hadn't messed up anything else. And then the Alliance techs had thrown her off again. Not only did they need to finish the repairs, they insisted, but now they also needed to make sure there weren't any unauthorized changes or devices put into place by the impostor.

With nothing better to do, and nowhere else to stay, she found herself returning to Anderson's apartment. Her apartment now, she supposed, but it was too... much. Too plush. It didn't feel like hers. It was bigger than the house she'd grown up in back on Mindoir, where six people had lived. She didn't know what Anderson had done with all that space, either. Had people over, maybe. Thrown parties worthy of a councilor. "I should have a party or something," she muttered. Somehow she didn't feel in much of a party mood. She wished... she wished things were different. They didn't have to be this way. She'd far rather have visited here with Anderson in residence, for one.

She wandered down the stairs from the bedroom she'd claimed as hers to the lower level, feeling out of place. It was a relief when her omni-tool chimed for an incoming call. Her shoulders straightened as she answered, "Shepard here."

"Hey, Shepard," came Garrus's familiar voice. "I think C-Sec is done asking us questions. Are you at the apartment? Mind if I—" There was a brief noise in the background, and he changed course: "Mind if Tali and I come over?"

"No," she said, relaxing a little. It would be good not to be alone in the oversized complex. "Feel free. I'll code the door so you can come right in."

"Great. As long as I'm speaking to the authentic and original Commander Shepard, that is. Wouldn't want there to be any confusion."

There was laughter in his voice. Shepard managed a laugh in answer, but it wasn't a good one. "Yeah. Wouldn't want that."

There was a brief pause. "You all right?" Garrus asked.

He could read her way too well. "Fine," she said firmly.

There was another pause, with the faint rumble of voices in the background. Then Garrus was back. "Tell you what. I'll be over in a few minutes, and Tali is going to pick up some food and follow shortly. You don't really have anything to eat there, do you?"

"I— you know, I haven't even checked." They'd been using the apartment as home base while running the op, but everything she could remember eating there was a jumble of takeout and delivery. She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. "Yeah. Not much. Some leftover pizza. I don't think there's anything dextro-friendly."

"All right, then. We're on it. See you soon."

The comm clicked off, and the absence of that voice on the other end made the apartment seem larger and emptier. Shepard's footsteps echoed as she wandered around aimlessly. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the message light on her terminal flashing green, and went over to check it, glad to have something to do.

_From: Kahlee Sanders_

_Re: Hope you like it_

_Commander, I hope this note finds you well and that you're settling in to the apartment. I suggested to David that he might give it to you. You deserve a place to relax. Sometimes I think that the kind of experiences a place has had create a mood there. David and I have spent some good times here over the years, and I wish you the same. _

Val blew out a breath. She didn't know if it made things better or worse to know she had both Anderson's and Kahlee's permission to use the space. Good mood? She wasn't feeling it now. It was just _wrong_; she couldn't shake the feeling that Anderson was gifting her this place because he didn't think he was ever coming back. No matter what he'd said, it didn't feel as though this place belonged to her.

Wouldn't be the first time she'd taken his place, though. She'd put on a good front, but it had taken a few weeks, Spectre commission or no, to feel as though the _Normandy_ was hers.

She pushed herself away from the terminal. She ought to write Kahlee a note, say thank you, but she couldn't find the will to do it now. Later. Tomorrow, maybe. Restlessly, she made her way out of the… office, she supposed it was, and out into the wide-open front rooms, with the bar and the piano and the leather couches and the gently crackling fire. She watched the flames for a moment. She'd always found the random movement a little hypnotic, even soothing. If she let her mind drift, maybe she could find some solace in them now.

The door pinged softly and then opened, and she heard the familiar clank of armored footsteps. "Hey, Shepard," Garrus called.

"How can you be sure it's me?" she returned, still staring into the flickering flames.

The resulting silence was long enough that she tore her gaze away to find Garrus looking at her with arms crossed and an expression she couldn't read. "What?" she asked, defensive.

"It was a joke, Shepard. I didn't think you were still worrying about that," he said.

"I'm not _worrying_. I just—" She spread her hands, let them fall to her sides. "What if there was more than one clone. What if there was another plot. I don't know. How would you know?"

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to test you by asking you questions only you know the answers to? What I said the first night we spent together? Because that's bullshit, and I'm not going to indulge it. You're you."

She gave him a skeptical look, eyebrow raised. "You talk to me for five minutes, and you're that sure?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah," he said, taking a few steps toward her. "For one thing, that look on your face right now. No one else gives me a look like that."

Shepard smiled in spite of herself. "Awfully sure of yourself, Vakarian."

"Give me a little credit. I think I know you pretty well by now." He came up to her side and rested an arm across her shoulders, heavy and somehow reassuring. She sighed and leaned into him, ever so slightly, tilting her head against the familiar hard metal that ringed his cowl. "And this," he said quietly. "An impostor would have to be a hell of a good actress to relax around an enemy. So what's bothering you?"

There were a lot of things bothering her, as it happened. The one that floated to the top and came out when she opened her mouth was, "It didn't have to end that way."

"Hm?" Garrus idly stroked down her arm.

"She just… gave up. Let go. All she had to do was take my hand. She didn't have to…"

While she hesitated, searching for words, Garrus said carefully, "I don't think she could bring herself to trust you enough."

"That's just it." Restless, Shepard shrugged off his grip and paced. "She didn't have to do any of it. She didn't have my memories. She could have been anyone, done anything. Hell, I'd have helped her. Alliance and Council wouldn't have liked having her moving around, maybe, but she said herself we had different prints, so there'd be at least some way to tell us apart. She acted like there could only be one of us, like she'd have to take my place to survive, but that's not _true_."

Garrus said, with the same care, "My suspicion is that the plan belonged to Brooks. Or whatever her name really is. The—your clone—must have accepted Brooks' word that there was only one alternative."

"I know." Shepard sank heavily onto the nearest couch. Garrus came to stand in front of her, fidgeting slightly. After a moment, she continued, quietly, "I remember what it was like. Waking up alone on Lazarus Station, under attack. There was no one I knew, I didn't know where any of you were, and the people who said they were on my side weren't people I was sure I could trust. She must have— she must have been so _scared_, Garrus."

He dropped into a crouch in front of her, close enough to put his hands on her knees. "Val—"

"And she didn't have someone like you, or Tali, or even Miranda. Only Brooks, who manipulated her and told her she couldn't trust anyone else. Told her relying on people made me weak, and going it alone would make her strong. She didn't—" She shook her head. "She didn't understand anything. She wanted to be Commander Shepard, she wanted the _Normandy_, but not the _Normandy_'s crew? That just wouldn't work. At all." She knew Garrus and Tali had saved her life that day. Again. She'd lost count of how many times they'd all saved each other's lives. Just as crucially, it was her crew, her friends, who saved her sanity, who kept her going, day in and day out. "And she could have done something else. We could have worked it out. I…" She looked up from the floor finally, and found his worried gaze boring into her. She tried to smile. "I always wanted a sister. Three brothers, and I kept begging for another girl."

She watched Garrus's face, the minute shifts of his expression, until he said, "I doubt she could even have imagined the possibility."

"I know." Val put her hands over his. "And… I guess that's what's bothering me."

He drew breath to answer, but the door chimed again, and Tali called from the entrance, "Shepard? Garrus? Are you here? I'm not interrupting something already, am I?"

"Over here," Shepard called. Simultaneously, Garrus said, "What if you _were_ interrupting, Tali?"

"Well, if I were, I'm supposed to take pictures. They'd be worth a lot to the tabloids," said Tali, coming around the corner with several cartons of takeout in her arms.

"You wouldn't," said Garrus.

"Don't try me, Garrus. You knew I was coming over. Shepard, here, this one is for you." Tali set the largest carton on the nearest end table. She and Garrus divided the rest of the cartons between them. Shepard opened hers to find it full of pad thai.

"My favorite. You remembered." She was oddly touched; she couldn't remember the last time the three of them had done something like this.

"Of course," said Tali, heading toward the kitchen in search of utensils. "I even remembered to get Garrus some of that horrible pickle stuff he likes so much."

"Thanks, Tali," said Shepard. Garrus settled on the couch next to her, taking a bite of the aforementioned pickle.

"Mm, delicious," he said loudly.

Tali returned with utensils for all of them. "Ugh," she said. "I can smell that even through my filters, you know."

"I'm aware. Since you find it necessary to tell me every time I have some."

"It doesn't smell bad to me," Shepard ventured.

"Please, Shepard. We all know why you're taking his side."

"I didn't know there were sides," she said, smiling.

"There are always sides," said Tali. "Oh! Do you know what else I did? I got us a vid to watch. You have this huge vidscreen, Shepard, let's not let it go to waste."

"What is it?" Shepard asked, digging into her pad thai.

"_Destiny in the Stars_! It's new, from the director of _Fleet and Flotilla_."

"More romantic nonsense," said Garrus.

Shepard hid a grin, knowing perfectly well that Garrus had enjoyed the vid. Or, at least, its soundtrack. Tali pointed at him accusingly. "You shut your turian mouth. _Fleet and Flotilla_ was brilliant and moving, and deserved every award it got."

"I hear it had great music, too," Shepard piped up.

Garrus coughed. Tali sighed, ignoring him. "It really did. Anyway, to judge from the case, this one has enough guns and explosions even for you, Garrus."

"Fine," he said, settling back with his meal. "I get to heckle when their tactics are stupid, though."

"No, you don't," said Tali, but she started the vid anyway.

There were guns, and explosions, and romantic nonsense. Garrus groaned and threw spiced nuts at the screen. Tali took a handful and threw them at him. Shepard settled into the couch between them and started, slowly, to feel at home.

Maybe soon she'd have that party, after all.


	28. Z is for Zero

Shepard could hear the buzzing of the seeker swarms and the chittering of the Collectors behind her. Her legs were already burning, but from somewhere she pulled up some buried reserve of energy for a last sprint and a jump—

—the _Normandy_ was already moving, the gap was too large, she wasn't going to make it; she reached desperately for a little dark energy boost, but her biotics were tapped out, her implant feeling hot and heavy at the base of her skull, so she made it on pure muscle power—

—her chest slammed into the hull of the ship, gauntleted hands scrabbling for purchase against the deck, legs flailing uselessly. Fortunately, Garrus was there, clamping on to her arm with a viselike grip. With the extra pull, she was able to get a leg up, and he hauled her the rest of the way in. The hatch slammed shut behind her. "Joker—" she gasped.

"Believe me, we're going," Joker shouted back. Sure enough, she could feel the mass shift as the ship accelerated away from the base. She became aware that she lay half-tangled with Garrus on the floor of the airlock; there was a lingering battle odor composed of scorched metal, ozone, sweat, and the faint tang of blood, and both of them were breathing hard.

There was something appealing to the notion of simply passing out and lying there until someone saw fit to move her elsewhere. Didn't seem like it was going to happen, though. "EDI," she said faintly, "casualties?"

"All crew are accounted for, Shepard. Dr. Chakwas and Dr. Solus are treating patients in the medbay, but have not yet compiled a full injury report."

She shook her head. "Fatalities?"

"None, Shepard."

"None?" she whispered, not believing it, for all she'd forbidden everyone from using the words "suicide mission" weeks ago. Garrus's arms tightened around her. "The ship isn't about to fall apart or something, right?"

"While the _Normandy _has sustained significant damage, the current repairs should hold until we return to the other side of the Omega-Four Relay."

She closed her eyes. "We did it."

She felt rather than heard a low rumble, and realized that Garrus was laughing; a light pressure against the top of her head where he leaned against her. "Yeah, we did."

Somehow she mustered the energy to open her eyes and lift her head so she could look at him. "You were sure we'd lose someone," she accused, even though she'd privately agreed with his assessment.

"And I'm very glad to be wrong," he returned. "Up, Shepard. You're heavy."

"Wrong thing to say, my spiky friend," Joker called from the cockpit.

Shepard groaned. "It's fine. It's true, anyway."

She clambered to her feet with a little assistance from Garrus and braced herself so she could haul him to standing, too. They stood for a moment, close, and she felt her face break into a smile as she looked up, and saw the answering softness of his expression. They had both made it—they had all made it—against all the odds—

"You're not going to make out in my airlock, are you?" Joker shouted. "Because I don't need to see that, especially when both of you are bleeding."

Garrus ducked his head, looking positively embarrassed, and Shepard stepped back, laughing. Absent-mindedly, she ran a hand over her hair, and wished she hadn't; it was tangled and matted and sticky with _something_, and there was probably worse stuck to her gauntlet. "Right. Bleeding. Go check in with medbay, Garrus."

He crossed his arms, giving her a familiar skeptical look. "And you'll be doing what, then?"

"Damage assessment," she said with a vague gesture toward the CIC.

"I think that should wait until you get checked out yourself."

"I feel fine," she said, but she swayed as she turned away, and Garrus once again caught her arm.

"Uh-huh," he said. "Tell you what: I'll go if you will."

#

As it turned out, she felt a lot better after downing the energy drink that Dr. Chakwas put in her hand and scrubbing the worst of the grime from her skin. But she watched across the medbay with a sense of betrayal as Chakwas prepared to remove the round that had gone through a weak point in Garrus's armor. "You said you were all right!"

"Medi-gel, Shepard. No pain, no bleeding. I was fine for combat."

She wanted to argue, but it was definitely not a private space. Sitting opposite Shepard, Jack somehow managed to sneer at her over the juice she was sucking down as eagerly as Shepard had. Thane was breathing in something through a mask, maybe pure oxygen. Mordin was treating Miranda for something—torn muscle, or maybe a stress fracture, Shepard couldn't quite tell. She'd get the medical reports later.

It wasn't Garrus's fault that her heart had nearly stopped when he'd staggered back, and only restarted when he looked up and gave her a firm nod. She might not have taken him with her for the final assault if she'd realized—

—which was probably why he hadn't said anything. And she couldn't kid herself; she would have, anyway. The whole team had been battered by that point. Finishing the mission without Garrus would have been like... trying to do it without her right arm.

She finished the last of her drink and pulled herself out of the chair, nervous energy getting the better of fatigue for the moment. Dr. Chakwas gave her a hard look and a warning, "Commander," as she headed for the door.

"I'll be back," Val promised. "You have your hands full at the moment." She could feel the strain in her shoulder and the sting of various burns and bruises, but the bleeding had stopped, and between medi-gel and the cybernetics, she felt not too badly, all things considered. And getting reports was not enough; she needed to see the extent of the damage to her ship and her people for herself.

She ducked out the door before either doctor could say anything more and surveyed at the mess hall. Overturned chairs, scorch marks, dishes and supplies spilling out of the cupboards, silent testimony to the Collectors' attack and their rough landing on the Collector Base. The sight sparked something tight in her chest. No one boarded her ship and took her crew without consequences. Whatever the Collectors had been planning, they'd learned that, to their cost.

And zero fatalities? She still couldn't quite believe it.

She headed down to deck 4 and swung into engineering, calling, "Tali?"

Gabby Daniels looked up from her station, her face drawn and set. "She has a sterile bubble set up in the science lab for suit repairs, ma'am. She's—" She grimaced. "—sending me messages constantly."

"Ah. Got it." Shepard took a closer look at her. "Gabby, you can take a break, if you need some time..."

The engineer gulped and shook her head. "I'd rather be working."

Shepard accepted that with a nod. "What's the damage, then?"

"Drive core seems to be functioning normally." Gabby's tone suggested she didn't know how that was possible. "Damage to the starboard thrusters, uh... considerable hull damage, ma'am..."

"Anything critical?"

"Everything's holding for now, but... I'd favor docking at Omega for further assessment and repairs, Commander."

"I second that," came Tali's voice over the comm. "I know how you feel about Omega, Shepard, but I don't want to push our luck."

"Okay. I'll tell Joker. Send me the full damage report when you've got it. And get some rest, both of you."

"Will do, Shepard," said Tali, and Gabby gave her a "Yes, ma'am," her attention returning to her console.

There was a hole in the cargo bay, only the shimmering of kinetic barriers obscuring a view of the stars. The space still smelled of smoke and gunfire as soon as she stepped off the elevator. Shepard found Grunt, Zaeed, and Jacob levering metal into place over the hull breach under Ken Donnelly's supervision. "Hard at work, gentlemen," she observed, and winced as Grunt's grip slipped and Zaeed cursed him roundly.

"Kinetic barriers won't hold forever," Jacob grunted, ignoring the byplay.

"That's the truth," Ken agreed. "Don't know about you, Commander, but I like having a nice, solid piece of hull between me and vacuum."

Shepard suppressed a shudder. "Couldn't agree more. Carry on. Get some shut-eye when you can."

She left on a chorus of mumbled acknowledgments and was on her way back to the elevator when Joker's voice cut in. "Hey, Commander, apparently the QEC's still working, because there's a call coming in."

She felt her face stretch out into a grin. "From the Illusive Man? You know what? I'll be right there."

#

It might have been the most satisfying time she'd ever told someone off. Shepard left the briefing room still grinning. She exchanged nods with Samara, who was talking to a tearful Kelly in the CIC. The justicar's serene presence might be exactly what the younger woman needed, she hoped. There were a few crew members hunched over their workstations, looking as haunted as Gabby; she gave them a wave and a smile as she passed on her way to the cockpit.

"Bullshit on the line? Nice, Shepard," Joker greeted her.

"That felt good," she admitted. "Make for Omega, okay? Tali says we need a thorough going-over."

"Already on it. Not pushing the old girl, either."

EDI piped up, "I fail to see the relevance of the age—"

"It's not that, EDI, it's the wear and tear," said Shepard.

"I see. Shepard, Dr. Chakwas requests that you return to sickbay immediately."

"Tell her I'll be there in a minute." She _liked_ watching the stars through the windows of the cockpit. It was reassuring. Familiar. Joker seemed relaxed, which helped her believe the ship really wasn't going to come to pieces at any moment.

"Checked in with the crew?" Joker asked.

"Yeah. Everyone's holding up. Haven't seen..." She ran through the roster in her head. "Kasumi. Or Legion."

"They are both assisting Engineer Daniels with system checks and emergency repairs," EDI informed her. "They are in the access tunnels below engineering."

"Oh. Good, then."

"Shepard," said a familiar voice behind her, and she turned to see Garrus in the corridor, regarding her with an expression... somewhere between concern and amusement, she thought. "Dr. Chakwas sent me up here to remind you that 'in a minute' is not 'immediately.' Also, that it's been at least five minutes."

"I'm fine," she said.

He reached out and poked her right shoulder. She winced. "Uh-huh," he said.

She relented and started toward the elevator. Garrus fell in at her side. "Oh, I get an escort?"

He dipped his head. "Just making sure you get checked out properly."

"You got shot and didn't tell me," she pointed out, as they stepped into the elevator.

"It wasn't much of a wound. Armor absorbed most of the impact. I'm fine."

He certainly seemed well enough, if tired. She was really starting to feel the fatigue herself, dragging at every limb. She rolled her right shoulder experimentally and winced. "Thanks for catching me."

"Any time," he said, with a quiet intensity that made her heart pound.

"We didn't even lose anyone."

"I know. Nice work."

She turned to face him, stepping closer and looking up at him over the broken collar of his armor. "It wasn't just me. I couldn't have done it without you."

"Sure you—"

She laid her fingertips over his mouth, feeling a small, weary surge of triumph that the action stopped him cold. "Don't even say it. I'm serious. For once in your life, take the credit you're due. I really... I _really_ couldn't have done any of this without you."

Garrus blinked at her, and then his mandibles twitched out into a smile. "You would have lost your mind and shot Lawson within the first month."

"Exactly." She stretched up far enough to replace her fingers with her lips, a soft, brief kiss. "Listen, I'm going to go see the doc, then head up my cabin to clean up and rest."

"Good. You need the rest."

"I'm not the only one. So come up and join me?"

He blinked a few more times, mandibles fluttering. "I'm, ah... not sure I'm up for round 2 just yet."

She leaned back against the wall of the elevator, feeling the ache in every joint and muscle. "Me neither. Not what I'm talking about. I'd just... like the company."

His gaze settled, somehow, turned serious. "I can do that."

The doors opened on deck 3, too soon, for once. "Good. You can let yourself in, then. Oh, and feed the fish while you're up there, will you?"

Garrus let out a long sigh. "I should have known."

She grinned as she backed out. "I figure we should have a celebration, the whole crew. Maybe tomorrow. I think Kasumi has enough booze down there. And I should report in to Anderson and try to figure out our next move. Oh, Tali says we need to put in at Omega for repairs. It's not my first choice, either, but—"

"Shepard," he said. "Stop. Today was a win. Give yourself a break."

Her smile tightened. "Reapers are still out there."

"I know. We'll get them. But you still need rest."

"And medical care," said Dr. Chakwas pointedly, behind her. "Need I remind you, Commander, that medi-gel is a _temporary_ solution to a medical problem? It is _not_ intended to replace long-term treatment."

Shepard gave Garrus a wave, and he let the elevator door close. Dutifully, she turned toward sickbay, letting Dr. Chakwas's lecture wash over her. A win. He was right. She still had her life, her crew, and her ship. A good day, then, all things considered. She'd defeated the Collectors, told off the Illusive Man, and lived to tell the tale.

Yeah. A _damned_ good day.

* * *

Thank you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing along the way! I am probably going to post a chronological guide as a last chapter, so you can use it as a reference to read the series in order if you choose.

This is probably not the last I'll be writing about Val Shepard, as I have a few other ideas for her knocking around, but it's the end of this particular alphabet series. Thanks again for reading!


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